


Fighting Talk - The Mummy Book 1

by TheMissingPieces



Series: The Mummy plus one [1]
Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Humor, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Bad At Titles, Romance, Sarcasm, Slow Romance, Visions in dreams, too - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2018-12-15 06:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 48,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11800701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMissingPieces/pseuds/TheMissingPieces
Summary: A vagrant boards a boat in America bound for Egypt. With a thirst for travelling and her wits somewhat about her, she drops into the biggest adventure ever to save the world. Except she keeps getting distracted by smouldering Ancient Egyptians and brooding Medjai. With a hell bent Mummy on her tail, spouting nonsense about visions and trying to kill her new friends, Magdalene bolsters her courage with a little whiskey to put the dead to rest. Permanently this time.





	1. What do we do with a drunken sailor?

The one issue with being able to live as you please, is that freedom and boredom are very close friends.

* * *

She stood by the docks wearing a leather hat, wide brimmed to shade her eyes from the sun and fastened loosely under her chin with cord, a canvas holdall hanging from her shoulder. She had been waiting for what must have been at least an hour, but she seemed uninterested with the time. She wasn’t slouching and lolling about like some of the dockhands seemed to, she stood with purpose, but she stood with an ease about life. As if there was nothing she had to do and nowhere she had to be.

She didn’t.

She had all the time in the world and nothing to do with it except stand and wait. Waiting for someone else? Perhaps. Waiting for the right boat? Possibly. Waiting for the mood to strike her to move from the lovely, shady spot out of the sun? Definitely.

She didn’t really want to move at all, America had grown on her and she supposed she’d stored away all her growing up until she was there. It was more home than anywhere else and the weather was nice enough. But there was only so much interest you could invest in the weather.

There was a growing popularity for sailing and cruises, the fastest way to travel outside the country too. Unless you wanted to get to Mexico. She knew a lot of people who had wanted to get to Mexico but they didn’t always show up on the other side.

Eyes crawling methodically over the crowd to the left, and back slowly over to the right, without moving her head she listened to the clop of smart heels on the ground. The gait of someone who was comfortable being here and knew where he was headed.

She scraped her own feet, clad in heavy boots that hadn’t come off her feet since she succeeded in haggling them from a construction worker for, of all things, a newspaper and a kiss on the cheek. Moving up behind her mark she quickened her pace, tucked her hair under her hat, hunched over her shoulders and took an unlit cigarette out of her pocket.

“We seem set for fine sailing, Captain!”

The Captain turned to see a rather slight crew member addressing him in a rather broad American accent whilst looking over his shoulder. If it weren’t for the cigarette in his hand, he would have accused him of being not much more than a boy.

“Yes, I believe so. Are you one of my crew?”

“That depends, Captain, on which gal you might be sailing and where you might be sailing her to.” The youth winked.

The American sailor’s jaw tensed as he heard his precious vessel being called a ‘gal’, as if she were a tramp and nearly blanched at the wink. But he couldn’t resist standing even straighter as he proudly announced his ship.  
“The S.S. Resolute. Bound for the port of Alexandria.”

They tugged their hat down just a little bit father. “I’m working the very same.”

“No one aboard my ship would be caught smoking, young man. You don’t even look old enough to be employed on a passenger ship.” He peered down his nose, a challenge as he was rather on the short side.

“That obvious, is it?” A cheeky grin suddenly appeared from underneath the brim of the hat, the voice grew into a distinctly British accent and the cigarette, still unlit, disappeared back into a pocket. “There ain’t no fooling you, Sir.”

All at once the body unravelled itself and put itself back together. The rolled shoulders straightened up, the legs became taller and the arms swung freely away from the torso. Then it all shook itself into the body of a very tall, scrawny young girl with a youthful twinkle in her eye. The hat was taken off and brown flapper-girl style hair shook out.

“Just who are you, madam? I don’t take children out for jaunts.” The Captain became very crisp, but not without the courtesy even an American must afford any lady of any means.

“’m a potential passenger I hope.” She said scruffily. “You caught me out on the crew act, I was hoping to get on for free.”

He was firm. “I haven’t the time for anyone other than my crew and my paying passengers.”

She ran after him. “I can work for you, I’m not shy of labour, you know.”

“It isn’t procedure.” He was getting very hot under the collar.

“Look I know you’re not like most men, Sir.” She wheedled. If the Captain had hoped to lose his tag-along in the hustle and bustle of a New York port, he was sorely mistaken. She was nimble girl who was tall enough for people to give her a sufficient berth wide to keep up with him. “I know you’ve got more standards than everyone else, I mean who wouldn’t with such a nice ship an’ all, but I really need to get to Alexandria.”

“What’s in Alexandria?” He asked.

Her reply came with a shrug, “Something new. I travel a lot, it’s what I do. Travel around.”

“How old are you? Shouldn’t you be with your parents?”

She laughed a laugh that said only the criminally insane would think that a young girl travelling alone had parents. This earned her a sympathetic glance from the Captain who, softening as he looked at the young girl with a single holdall and a chapped bottom lip, let an unregistered passenger aboard his ship with instructions to stay out of sight and never let him see them again.

She did just that and snuck into the bowls of the ship. Those on the lowest decks cared nothing for her and she walked by them totally ignored. The higher up she got, the more questioning glances she received but if she tipped her hat at them and smiled politely they let her pass. People didn’t like to become involved in things that took more effort than the reward it reaped, kicking a young girl off a ship wasn’t going to make a single difference to their lives.

For the most part, the journey was pleasant, rolling seas and clipping at quite a nice pace. Passengers hungered for a holiday in exotic lands, not a long time spent at sea. They were not afraid to spend whatever it took to ensure a speedy trip. The toffs were a little over-bearing, silly, giggly women in groups with overly big, fluffy coats who never wore long skirts and then complained when their stockings got wet. The men were a little better, a smart suit for every occasion, who politely greeted her because she was a woman. Then politely avoided her because she was a woman alone. At least she wasn’t a woman for sale, she was convinced there were a few of them about the ship, but she was more interested in the sea than hunting down prostitutes.

The sea. She remembered the first time she had crossed the Atlantic, being amazed at the smell of the salt and the vastness of the ocean. It was heaven to look at the horizon and see it unblemished, just a seam in between two different shades of blue. This time it was subtly different; the air was colder and whilst she enjoyed it no less, there was something disturbing that had settled itself into the waves. The hypnotic rocking of the boat as she slept did nothing to sway away the pit of apprehension in her gut.

Was it excitement about new adventures? Perhaps. Did that make her feel any better? Absolutely not.

Not that it mattered, they made their crossing in a matter of two weeks and she set foot in the port with a single, gleeful wave at the Captain, who afforded her a trace of a smile before forgetting she existed. She liked it that way.  
She set off for Cairo, hitching a ride in the cargo hold of a train bound for the capital city, then following the path of the merchants on camels and horseback. She was used to walking, she had done so much of it over the years that she barely noticed the road beneath her. She found the night time an issue however, dressed only in a single layer with a thin blanket in her holdall the cold found no difficulty in sneaking under her skin. For a country that was so hot and unbearably dry during the day there was a treacherous, freezing wind at night.

Along the way she desperately tried to find a group of travellers or at least transport that would tolerate a tagalong. A lone white girl was an unusual sight to many of the people she shared the roads with, avoided by native Egyptians as dangerous, and avoided by other white folk as suspicious.

This was no different in Cairo, but there were even more people to ignore her, a huge, bustling city of commerce. The river seemed the best place to be if she was ever going to get anywhere in this sweltering new country. But the beauty of it was, that was all she wanted; anywhere, just somewhere new and Egyptian. She had her pick of parties to join, and she was prepared to juggle to get one.

“Afternoon gentlemen.” She strolled up to a band of men who were getting a weedy looking character to help them carry their bags onto a river boat. “Fancy a hand?”

The most intellectual-looking one spared her little time. “Away with you child, we haven’t time for games and we are not interested in anything you have to sell.”

“Aw, come on, you haven’t heard my pitch yet.” Her mouth pricked into a jaunty smirk abstained from showing irritation at being called a child. “I’m offering you good gentlemen free labour, all I want is to get wherever you’re going.”

“We’re off hunting for treasure in the lost City of the Dead. I don’t think you’d be interested girlie.” The blonde one laughed at her.

She spread her hands wide, innocuously. “I’m after adventure and travel. And if you’re going on one of those digs that are so popular, you’ll need an extra pair of hands. I’m quite nifty you know.”

Blonde put his bag down. “We don’t want your help.”

“You just don’t know me is all.” She continued, misdirecting his line of eyesight with a sloppy pass at his luggage before relieving him of the gun tucked in its holster.

“Hey!”

“Do you want this back?”

Henderson scowled at the laughter of his colleagues and grabbed his gun back.

The shortest one asked, “You interested any in gold, lady? Someone who can lift a man’s weapon without blinking is someone I’d be worried about leaving valuables with. Things can go missing.”

“I only want as much as can keep me on the move, I don’t want fame and fortune like you, don’t settle too well with me.”

He rubbed his jaw, considering matters, then pointed at her bag. “That all you own?”

“Why? You expecting me to have a wardrobe stashed away somewhere? I’m no pretty woman on a jolly, Sir.”

She threw her bag at him when he gestured for it with open hands, watching as he rifled through it. He found nothing more than a few spare bits of clothes and trinkets. There was a small leather pouch that he took out and emptied. There were a few US coins in there, all the good it would do her in Egypt.

“You’re no thief either. Not even a pistol on you.”

A man with glasses ruffled her hair. “Scamp just wants a good time and a boat ride. If she’s not after any treasure I’m fine with her tagging along.”

Henderson scoffed, and the intellectual man who had dismissed her to begin with remained aloof.

The man with her bag agreed. “We could use an extra pair of hands for all our gear, we won’t get any other help until we’re at Hamunaptra. And she’s sly too, she can keep an eye out for any real pickpockets that might come looking for easy pickings. You’re hired.”

She beamed at them and Glasses shook her hand.

“I’m Burns. Welcome to the greatest archaeological dig of all time.” He drawled, his accent reminding her of the country she’d only just left.

Pulling out a cigarette packet he opened it up. “Daniels did you take my last gasper?”

‘The scamp’ pulled a cigarette out of her pocket, she didn’t even smoke them but they were handy when you needed the trust of those who did.

“’ere you are, Sir.” She handed it to Glasses and took a box full of hammers and chisels onto the boat, spending another half hour helping them load insane amounts of boxes, crates, bags and bulky equipment. This could be a grand adventure indeed, provided this fabled City of the Dead was less lost, more just hard to find.

The guide spent the entire time leering at her. Once or twice he had attempted some sort of conversation with her but after a while he gave up, unhappy with her brief replies, and called her impudent before vanishing somewhere near the camels. She mistrusted him entirely. The twisting, nervous feeling that had rooted in her on the journey to Egypt only took further hold in the presence of the odious little man. Forever such a simpering smile, and a high-pitched voice that grated on her ears. But for adventure she would put up with anything.

The boat itself was nice, and she ended up with an actual room that was, for once, hers, bought and paid for. That in itself made her smile, it wasn’t often she slept somewhere where someone knocked on the door and gently woke her to invite her down to dinner.

Sat next to her in the small dining room of the river boat was a British woman like herself, although much more intellectual and fascinating.

“How do you do? Evelyn Carnahan.” She offered her hand.

“Uh, hi.” She shook it firmly, the slightly older woman seemed off-put by a man’s rough handshake coming from a lanky girl. “Magdalene. But don’t call me that.”

“You’re English, how marvellous! What should I call you then?”

Magdalene bit at her already overly chapped lip and concentrated on stabbing at her plate of food. She had no idea what it was. “You probably won’t know me long enough to call me anything. Maddie, I guess, if you ‘ave ta talk to me. Magdalene makes me sound like some old dame.”

Evelyn was daintily progressing through her own plate, poised like a true middle-class lady of quality. “Then you may call me Evy, well it’s lovely to meet you. What brings you to Egypt?”

“Adventure.”

“You’re an explorer?”

“No.” Magdalene laughed. “I travel wherever I want, I was in America and I ended up here.”

“Fancy that.” Evy became extraordinarily animated, and tapped insistently on the arm of the man next to her at the table. “Mr O’Connell, this young lady has been travelling in America.”

A tall, surly, attractive man with vibrant eyes turned to lift her a mildly pained smile. “A pleasure.”

“Likewise.” Magdalene responded in an equally dull tone.

“Why’d you make the mistake to come here?” He asked, whiskey glass in hand.

“Everywhere else got boring.” She lifted her own glass of gin and sipped. “I’ve snagged a ride as a hand for a bunch of Americans, loud as anything and obsessed with treasure. They’re travelling with some stuck up Prof or something.”

His brow darkened and he lifted himself out of his seat to head towards the smoking area. “Excuse me ladies.”

Magdalene snorted at being called a lady.

As Mr O’Connell left the dining room, Evy resumed her unique brand of conversational chatter. Magdalene couldn’t help but beg her to go on as she spoke of all she knew on Ancient Egypt, she sensed the adventure looming.

“So, you’re going to this Hamunaptra place?” she asked. “The American lot I’m working for are going to the very same place, is it really real?”

Evy smiled brightly, her perfect teeth showing. “Absolutely, Mr O’Connell has been there himself. Supposedly it’s the resting place of the richest Pharaoh of them all, Seti the first.”

“That would be why the Americans are going.” She tipped the rest of her drink down her throat and they headed out onto a table where they could drink in the breeze off the Nile and Evy could still read by the lights of the boat. “Now why’d a woman like you get with a gun-blazing type like O’Connell?”

“I hired him. He knows where he’s going, supposedly.” Evy pursed her lips. “And the map we found was half burnt. Without a guide, we can only get half of the way there.”

“Maybe we shall see each other there.” Magdalene smiled and slung her canvas bag back over her shoulder by the tattered leather strap.

“What’s in the bag?” The debut explorer asked.

“Just my things. When you travel constantly you need everything with you, sometimes you don’t get time to pack up a library before you go.” A subtle jibe at the monstrosity of books Evy had brought aboard. “Night Miss Evy.”

“Goodnight Maddie.” Evy’s warm smile at her was almost reminiscent of sisterly affection. Most likely a sense of companionship as they were both British.


	2. Don't try and stab her

“O'Connell, sit down. We could use another player.” Jonathan greeted the American whilst taking a drink of bourbon.

Rick stood looking at old drinking partners around the card table. “I only gamble with my life, never my money.”

Daniels looked up from dealing the cards. “Never?” He spoke in his thick accent. “What if I was to bet you five hundred dollars we get to Hamunaptra before you?”

That confirmed they were after the City of the Dead. Rick knew more than anyone that these men would sell their foot for gold. The lost city was nothing more than a death trap.

“You’re looking for Hamunaptra?” He asked.

Henderson piped up, cocky and worse for the wear from drink. “Damn straight we are.”

“And who says we are?”

“He does.”

The Americans said in unison, pointing at a very sheepish brother of Evy, smiling nervously at Rick who was staring at him very pointedly.

He stuttered, “Well…”

“Well, how ‘bout it? Is it a bet?” Daniels said.

He was goading him, begging him to back down. Burns looked up from his cards. Rick smiled at them with his mouth, but it never reached his eyes.

“Alright, you’re on.”

“What makes you so confident, Sir?” The Professor travelling with them looked up from his book, wrapped in scarves, glasses and his silly fez, looking for all the world like the pompous caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.

“What makes you?” He was cautious.

“We got us a man who’s actually been there.” Henderson was still smugly looking at his cards.

Jonathan’s drunken mouth seemed to know no bounds. “Oh, what a coincidence, because O’Connell-”

Rick hit the back of his head with his bag.

“Whose play is it? Is it – is it my play? I thought…”

“Gentlemen,” Rick clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard, making him wince in pain. “We got us a wager. Good evening Jonathan.”

“Good night.” Jonathan said, feigning joviality.

He walked out to the open air, where Miss Carnahan was sat reading by herself. Where was the gin-drinking scruff of a girl she had befriended? He took his collection of guns and smacked them down on the table, making the woman absorbed in her book jump out of shock.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare ya.” He said sarcastically, hoping he could dissuade her from going to Hamunaptra.

“The only thing that scares me, Mr. O’Connell, are your manners.” She said.

Well if the evil in the City of the Dead could be defeated with sarcasm and a sharp tongue, they were as good as home dry.

Ever the cool-headed ladies’ man, he asked “Still angry about that kiss, huh?”

Evy turned her nose up. She clearly felt her dignity was on the line and settled on a rather biting response.

“Well, if you call that a kiss.” She said.

Rick’s mouth twitched in annoyance. Evy finally seemed noticed his abundance of firearms, each one he was methodically checking.

“Um, did I miss something? Are we – are we going into battle?” She asked brightly.

“Lady, there's something out there. Something underneath that sand.” His words were dark and his tone was darker, but Evy, in her enthusiasm, brushed them off. 

“Yes, well, I’m hoping to find a certain artefact. A book, actually. My brother thinks there's treasure.” She paused. “What do you think’s out there?”

“In a word? Evil. The Bedouin and the Tuaregs believe that Hamunaptra is cursed.” Rick was beginning to think it was pointless in changing the woman’s mind.

“Oh, look, I don’t believe in fairy tales and hokum, Mr. O’Connell.” She certainly had a way with words. “But I do believe one of the most famous books in history is buried there. The Book of Amun-Ra. It contains within it all the secret incantations of the old kingdom. It’s what first interested me in Egypt when I was a child. It’s why I came here…sort of a life’s pursuit.”

Rick smiled in amusement. “And the fact that they say it’s made out of pure gold makes no never mind to you? Right?”

She was pleased. “You know your history.”

“I know my treasure.” He shut her down abruptly.

“Um…by the way…why did you kiss me?”

Ah, she was human after all. Rick smiled in humour at the memory, she had nice lips for someone so up-tight.

“I don’t know. I was about to be hanged. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She made a sound of disgust and once again became the proper Englishwoman, stalking off crossly.

“What? What’d I say?” He found women impossible.

* * *

Magdalene had initially gone back to her room to sleep, but had found it impossible. There was just too much going on to rest.

She had seen coos, she had fought off thieves. There was even a burning building at one point. Her favourite moment was always once the adventure was only just over, adrenaline still pulsating through her blood and the whole adventure laid out like a map in her mind for her to pour over and remember. Then onto the next treasured story.

Hat on its prescribed cord, slung around her neck, she walked to the railing of the boat and used her bag as a seat to look out at the inky water. Quiet times were always nice, nothing compared to moments of excitement but they were still valuable.

“Evelyn!”

Several shots came from the cabin section and she heard the American O’Connell shout out for her new friend.

She ran over to the chaos, taking out a small dagger she kept stashed in her waistband for emergencies. Rick was shooting at some sort of Egyptian ninja whilst another one with a missing hand had Evy pinned to a wall.

“Who are these lot?”

“Pirates!” Rick yelled over the sound of his own gunfire.

“Well Captain Hook and his gang aren’t going to find Peter Pan here, are they?” She took a swipe at the hook-handed pirate, who lashed out and dashed the dagger from her hand.

“Hey! Bad form!”

Rick shot the lamp hanging from the wall, the paraffin oil setting ablaze to a settee at a rapid pace. Magdalene bent down to pick up her knife and the pirate loosened his grip on Evy to run her through with his hook. Rick yanked her up and out of the way of the swiping hook just in time, rolling his eyes at the absent girl, whilst Evy took the opportunity to take a candlestick and jam the flame into Mr Hook’s eye. Evy ran as fast as she could down the corridor, the American still haphazardly firing at anything that moved.

“Now that weren’t very gentlemanly of you was it.”

Magdalene was aiming for the two flailing men, heedless of the burning room. Rick leapt back in and caught her by the scruff of her collar and dragged her away. Her heels and her bag scrapped against the wooden boards.

“He tried to stab me!” She protested, still facing backwards

“You’re getting on my nerves you little scamp.” He growled.

Evy came back at them at a startling pace, gasping, white slip flapping everywhere. “The map! The map! I forgot the map!”

Rick grabbed her with his other hand. “Relax, I’m the map. It’s all up here.”

“Oh, that’s comforting.” The more genteel woman was not happy.

“What is it with women and running into danger?”

“Hey!” Both Evy and Magdalene were indignant.

As they ran, horses were rearing up in fear, more pirates littered the deck setting alight the boat. Rick finally let go of Magdalene and she stood up in a huff. He ignored her, took his bag off his shoulder and threw it at Evy.  
“Hold this.”

“What’s in there?”

“Guns.” Evy replied to Magdalene’s question.

Magdalene arched a brow at the bulging sack. “Is he overcompensating? Ah!” She ducked as one of the pirates shot above her head and the three hid behind the partition wall.

The bullet holes were progressing with even pace towards Rick’s head, preoccupied as he was with re-loading his gun. Evy grabbed his braces and tugged him towards her, just as a bullet hole appeared where his head was. His only response was to grab another revolver.

“He’s not very well mannered, is he?” The younger woman said.

Rick shot at various men and they concentrated on not being set alight, running through the river boat. They were everywhere, men in black swarming over the ship with fire and guns just shooting at anyone they saw and terrorising the people as they jumped overboard to safety. Magdalene put her arm around a terrified Evy, kept her head down and followed Rick. There was no point trying to avoid being shot at, they were firing from too many sides so she prayed that they would miss until Rick got them to safety.

“Can you swim?” He yelled once they reached the railings.

“Of course I can swim if the occasion calls for it!” Evy yelled back.

“Trust me.” He hauled her into his arms and threw her overboard. “It calls for it.”

Magdalene began laughing hysterically at her scream of terror, cut off by a splash into the cold water. Rick gave her a look and was about to throw her too when a pirate leapt in his face. The American was left taking punches, then the other man wrapped his fingers around Rick’s neck. Magdalene watched in abject horror until a splinted beam fell down from a higher level, she brought it down on the back of his neck. He cried out in agony. Rick head-butted him and threw him into the blaze, his screams when he was set alight were loud enough to wake the dead.

A fat, green-toothed man came running to them. “O’Connell, O’Connell! What are we going to do?”

“Wait here, I’ll go get help!” Rick instructed.

And with that the guide jumped into the Nile, the green-toothed man soon realising his idiocy and following suit.

There was a resurgence in the sound of shots and Magdalene looked over at her recent employers who had taken refuge behind the pile of luggage she had stacked neatly for them. Doctor Chamberlain, in his silly hat, was whimpering at all the noise. The Americans were whooping and jeering from behind the boxes whilst firing like crazy, not even bothering to aim. But it wasn’t hard to miss the swarm of ninjas all over the deck. A skinny gentleman ran up on deck, covered in ash, and looked at the raucous bunch with her.

“Americans.” He drawled out the word in his refined English accent.

She made eye contact with him and nodded her head sagely.

Then Captain Hook reappeared from thin air, on fire, screaming at them in pain and fury. Both Magdalene and the English man set off running. Henderson shot at the blazing pirate until he fell overboard with a scream. Doctor Chamberlain was cowering behind Henderson’s shoulder, watching the dead man fall in horror.

“I say, bloody good show chaps.” The gentleman put on an Explorer’s hat and tossed a metal box in the air. “And did I panic? I think not.”

A flash of fire roared up in front of him and sent him yelping into the water below, as he tumbled his flailing arm knocked Magdalene off her balance and she dropped overboard with him. Shaking her wet hair she held onto her canvas bag, picked her hat out of the river before it floated away from her and waded after the others.

The pair soon reached Rick and Evy, still trying to hold together her sophisticated image in her white slip, muddy at the hemline, and dripping wet ringlets

“We’ve lost everything! All of our tools, all the equipment, all my clothes.”

Magdalene rolled her eyes and snorted at the comment about clothes. Hoisting her bag of belongings back up on her shoulder she flicked water at her. “You’re alive ain’t ya?”

The thin English man took a look at her. “You’ve got a funny way of talking.”

“Born and bred in England me mate, but I’ve spent the past few years in the land of the brave.”

“O’Connell! Hey, O’Connell!” That weedy man Beni was squawking at them. “It looks to me like I’ve got all the horses!”

“Hey Beni!” Rick yelled back. “Looks to me like you’re on the wrong side of the ri-ver!”

Magdalene laughed uproariously at the tantrum going on amidst the chaos of the other side of the river and shook her head, her hair whipping out as she shook off water like a dog. Evy wrinkled her nose at such uncouth behaviour and marched out of the bulrushes with all the resplendence of a drowned cat.

“Well, you’re a character and a half, aren’t you?” The English man tipped water out of his hat and offered his hand. “Jonathan Carnahan, Evy’s brother, are you the rascal those brutes talked about hiring?”

“The very same.” She shook his hand warmly, liking his humorous demeanour. “Although if I still got a job after this they’re more dumb than I thought.”

“Well there’s always room for one more on the winning team. Except him.” He threw an arm around her and looked at the spluttering, green-toothed man on all fours. “Rather nasty character that one, let me tell you what he did…”


	3. He hates bugs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the member and the guests who have left Kudos and subscribed, you're my motivation

Once they reached the nearest town, Magdalene was familiar with the back story of everyone involved on this little escapade. She was impressed with the courage of the lot of them, ‘mettle’ as Jonathan put it, who insisted that no matter where she had been living for the past few years he would re-educate her on how to us ‘proper English’. What he meant was he was sick of one yank in the group and he couldn’t bear two people using American slang.

The market she thought was like no other, a town full of strange sounds and even stranger smells. Each one was ephemeral, a temporary thread that pulled on her senses seductively before it left her longing for it to come back. Then the sands would bring her a new, delicious helping of another scent that she would breathe in headily.

“I only want four!” Jonathan’s voice sailed over the unfamiliar tongues and abolished all sense of blissful isolation. “Four! I only want four! Not a whole bloody herd!” He almost sounded Scottish.

She walked amongst stalls and stands, waiting for someone to distract her from the shouting of her most recent travel companions. Walking up the path carved out by two rows of wooden stalls she met a young boy walking the other way, looking longingly at some of the delicacies offered to paying customers. He bumped into her and looked up sharply. She sent him a wink, to which he smiled brightly, and jerked her head towards a crate of flowery bread. The boy seemed to understand and nodded.

She rooted around in her bag, tongue pushing at her inner cheek as she delved through haphazardly packed belongings, some still not dry from their wash in the river. Eventually she dragged out a small ball, used to stave off boredom on the most tedious journeys with nothing else to do. She tossed it about in her hands skilfully, throwing it over her head and catching it blindly.

The boy clapped before using reflexes only street children could develop to catch the ball she threw at him. Another wide-eyed nod of her head and some miming towards the next stall over communicated her intentions and he shot her another blinding grin before playing with the ball himself.

She continued to examine some stalls further down as the child skipped about, throwing the ball higher, higher, higher, until she had meandered her way down back behind the stalls. He slipped, and the ball flew from his hands at an angle, smashing pottery hanging from hooks on the stall next to the crate of bread.

He began apologising in his native tongue to the man who owned the pottery, also heaping upon himself the wrath of the baker, who now had shards of clay in amongst his goods.

Magdalene wriggled through the wooden stalls and crouched by the bread, soft and very warm. She lifted several of the small loaves before she spotted some fruits further along and filched some of them as well. Standing back up she crooked a finger at the child with a crafty grin and he ran away like lighting, leaving the men shouting at each other.

The child joined her and lifted his hands up, cupped together, for some of the food. When presented by the girl with three loaves and substantial number of berries, his eyes lit up like he had seen gold.

Magdalene pointed at herself and said, “Maddie.”

“Mad-ee.” The small boy repeated pointing at her, he pounded his chest and said proudly, “Hamed.”

They re-joined her party as Jonathan paid the camel owner, whilst she laughed at the antics of Hamed, who comically replicated the scolding of the two stall owners for her. It did not matter that she could not understand him, mockery was funny in any language. Rick looked at the boy, then her and then the bread.

“Did you steal that?”

She shrugged. “It tastes better when you’ve worked for it.”

“You know how flawed that is right?”

The little boy hugged at the leg of the tall woman whilst protecting his food from Rick. She bent down to talk to him.

“Don’t worry, he won’t tell.”

“He can’t understand you.”

She smiled widely at Hamed and ran her hand over his closely cropped head of hair. “He still knows what I mean, I got that kind of voice.”

Rick rolled his eyes and spoke to Jonathan. “You probably could've got 'em for free.” He meant the camels. “All you had to do was give him your sister.”

Jonathan agreed. “Yes. Awfully tempting, wasn't it?”

Said sister suddenly appeared from a throng of women, dressed in black from head to toe in a gorgeous dress that flowed in the wind, scarves covering her face.

“Awfully.” Rick was gobsmacked.

The women moved away from a smiling Evy and started pulling at Magdalene’s clothes despite her protests and growing irritation. One of them made the mistake of taking away her hat. Magdalene fought for her hat back, but the woman was persistent. She bit at the lady’s finger and hissed like an electrocuted cat at them all. They drew back in fear, one or two shrieked. Hamed began laughing hysterically, pointing at the old women. He said something unintelligible to them and they walked off, twitching their skirts crossly. Hamed was still laughing as Magdalene put her hat firmly back on her head.

Everyone else stared at the feral girl, eyebrows raised and jaws on the floor.

“O’Connell.” Jonathan said. “Is that exposure to your Americanised society?”

“No, that’s all her.” Rick said, turning away to get on his camel.

Magdalene felt a tug on her shirt, Hamed was there presenting the ball. She shook her head and wrapped his fingers around it, he could keep it as a gift. He hugged it to his chest with endless chatter, giggling bashfully as she hugged him and presented him with another loaf.

He ran off, clutching bread and ball in hands and Magdalene smiled as she mounted her camel. Sometimes small adventures were just as good as the little ones. She ignored the looks of the others and tossed a berry into her mouth. She had never seen a camel before and found the animals fascinating, marvelling at the group of them as she settled in for a long journey.

The journey itself was interesting to say the least, and Magdalene was by far the most relaxed out of all the people there. Whilst Evy was radiating anticipation over Hamunaptra, Rick concentrating on guiding them through the desert and Jonathan complaining about the camels, she sat back and enjoyed the motion of the travel.

“Never did like camels.” Jonathan complained. “Filthy buggers. They smell, they bite, they spit. Disgusting.”

The warden, Gad Hassan spat at the sand.

“I think they’re adorable.” Evy was incredibly romantic about them.

Gad Hassan began singing an Egyptian tune that was not very pleasing to listened to and drew Magdalene right out of her relaxed daze. Throughout the journey, she paid little mind to the direction she was going and kept her hat low over her brow to shade from the sun.

Once night drew in, Evy fell asleep very quickly. Rick shushed his camel to keep her from waking, although at the rate the warden was snoring, Magdalene thought there was little point. He sounded more camel-like than the camels themselves. Jonathan smacked him on the head with the stick he used to spur on his camel, having had enough of the horrific noise.

Magdalene slept herself but woke up not soon before dawn to see a line of horses on the horizon.

“Who are they?”

Rick jumped, not expecting anyone else to be awake. “You see them too scamp?”

“Well they ain’t a mirage, are they?”

She shook her head and tapped her camel in the side with her own stick, driving it onwards. They were clever animals, but docile and easily led. Stretching, she looked at the sky, awake and colourful.

“What’s got you so jumped up about Hamunaptra? Miss Evy says you’ve been there.”

“And I wish I wasn’t going back.” Rick replied.

She looked at him under the brim of her hat. “You like to travel, don’t ya? Legionnaire in the French army, it’s gotta be fun.”

“You interested in signing up or something? They don’t take girls.”

She laughed. “Nah, I like to choose where I travel. I don’t care where it is I go, I just like knowing I picked it.”

The steady rocking motion was waking her up. She studied Rick’s face as his eyeline was set solidly on the sand in front of them.

“What’s it like growing up in Egypt?” She asked.

Rick’s glare would have made most people shut up, or at least feel guilty about asking. Magdalene just gave him a childish smile while he turned back to the horizon in front of him.

“I spent a while in an orphanage back in Cairo before I went back to Chicago. How’d you tell I grew up here?”

“You look at home.”

She leant back and fell into silence for a few minutes as the others woke up.

“You always this easy going?” Rick asked.

“I try to be.” She replied, noticing people in the distance. “Look about, we’ve got company chaps.”

The other party, led by Beni on horses, joined them.

Rick looked them up and down, unhappy that they had all managed to reach the desert unscathed. Evy was more curious than anything else, but Magdalene found that was her usual expression.

“Good morning my friend.” Beni said.

“What the hell we doin’?” Daniels asked in annoyance.

“Patience, my good barat’m. Patience.”

“Remember our bet O’Connell. First one to the city, five hundred cash bucks.” Henderson butted in.

Magdalene looked over to Henderson who was chewing tobacco, a filthy habit that made your teeth yellow and rotted your gums, she looked away as he spat when he spoke. She may have been a ruffian but she had some sense of propriety, she was British.

Daniels addressed Beni. “A hundred of them bucks is yours if you help us win that bet.”

“Oh, my pleasure.”

Rick snorted at Beni being polite and the weedy man leered back at him.

“Hey O’Connell, nice camel.”

The army man just patted his ride and turned his attention to Evy.

“Get ready for it.” He said.

She looked confused. “For what?”

“We’re about to be shown the way.”

Magdalene squinted at the rising sun and gasped as the mirage in the desert became the lost City of the Dead.

“Here we go again.” Rick commented drily.

Beni whipped in a frenzy at his camel, Rick following swiftly afterwards. Soon everyone was charging at Hamunaptra, whooping and yelling. Ever the odious character, Beni began hitting Rick repeatedly with his whip, until Rick fought him off and threw him to the ground.

“So-long Beni!”

“That serves you right.” Evy chided him, catching up with Rick, and left him shaking his head clear in the dust and sand. Rick stared at Evy and sent her the most absurd, lopsided grin. She smiled back, a sparkling smile, until she lost control of her camel and it raced away with her clinging on for dear life.

“Woohoo!” Magdalene cried out, hat flying off her head and dangling by the chord. “Go Miss Evy!”

Jonathan joined in, “Whoo! Go Evy go!”

“Whoo!” Magdalene whooped again.

Soon there were tents erected all over the dig site, workers bustling about with, tools, ropes, bricks and other paraphernalia. Henderson stood atop an entrance to the underground part of the city along with Doctor Chamberlain, who sheltered under his black umbrella.

The other group were higher up the hill, Evy directing everyone’s movements. She was currently angling a dish plated with silver about, looking very uncoordinated to anyone who didn’t have her knowledge or an understanding of how she worked.

“That’s the statue of Anubis.” Evy pointed out once they had started digging, confusing the Americans tenfold with their seemingly obscure and fruitless dig site. “Its legs go deep underground. According to Bembridge scholars, that’s where we’ll find a secret compartment containing the golden Book of Amun-Ra.”

Gad Hassan was crying out sharply as Rick was tying a rope to an ancient column, ready to abseil down, and as he threw the rope over he kept catching the prison warden on the head.

“I’ve not seen anything like it.” Magdalene touched the statue of the dog-headed god of the afterlife. “They were a clever bunch, and amazing. I can’t believe any of this is real!”

Evy smiled at her as one would when teaching a child. “It really is, isn’t it? I could show you so much but I’m afraid we haven’t the time or those pesky yanks will steal the book. No offence O’Connell.”

“None taken.” He replied.

Evy looked to her brother, who was polishing the inside of a dish that still had the remnants of silvery plating on it but had clearly no idea what he was supposed to be doing with it.

“Jonathan, you’re meant to catch the sun with that.”

“S-so, uh, what are these old mirrors for?” Rick stuttered out, desperate to talk to the intellectual woman.

“Ancient mirrors. It’s an ancient Egyptian trick. You’ll see.” She said with confidence.

Rick nodded as if he understood and shifted around a bit. He brought out a leather parcel from behind his back, bashfully presenting it to her. “Uh, here, this is for, uh, you.”

Evy paused, looked at it, looked at him.

He tried to smile it off. “Go ahead, it’s something I borrowed off our American brethren. I thought you might like it…you might need it for when you’re, uh – uh, yeah.” He mimed chiselling and turned away quickly to tie off the rope.

Magdalene sniggered from behind her hand as she tugged cobwebs and rubble off another mirror.

“What are you lookin’ at?”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

Evy opened it up with a curious look to find a tool belt, complete with all necessary archaeological accessories. Her smile could have lit up the cavern by itself, who knew the way to a woman’s heart was through dirt-caked worker’s tools.

Gad Hassan called down to Rick, who jumped down the hole in the earth. “Hey! Look for bugs, I hate bugs.”


	4. Push off! We got here first

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, I've been on holiday

“Do you realise we are standing inside a room no one has entered in over three thousand years?”

The group’s voices echoed in the deserted and very dusty cavern.

“Wow…” Magdalene trailed off. “It’s really something else, isn’t it? Are you two ladies coming down here or what?”

The room was dark, save only the light coming through the hole in the ceiling, and was deliciously quiet. They could feel the ancient secrets wrapping around them and drifting lazily, heavily, through the air. It was impossible to create a scene more supernatural than this.

“Whoo! What is that god-awful stench?” Jonathan had to ruin the moment. He sniffed at the warden, struggling to shimmy down the rope. “Oh.”

Magdalene was instructed to clear cobwebs off the mirrors in the room whilst Evy angled them and announced the magic of her Egyptian trick.

“And then there was…light.”

The sunlight reflected off each mirror and sparkled against the dust in the room, creating an air of magic and unearthly secrets that radiated off the walls.

Rick was suitably impressed. “Hey, that is a neat trick.”

“Oh my God. It’s a sah-netjer.” Evy wandered into the room, awe in her voice.

“Huh?”

“A preparation room.” She said.

Rick was extremely apprehensive. “Preparation for what?”

“For entering the afterlife.” Evy looked in his direction and her voice came almost slyly, dripping with glee, as she smiled at him.

“Cool.” Magdalene caught up with them.

“Mummies, my good son.” Jonathan clapped Rick on the shoulder. “This is where they made the mummies.”

They walked through, torches in hand, as Rick led them, pistol out. He claimed anything could be down here, but, how could it? The place had been dead for over three thousand years. A rustling noise, like thousands of tiny legs, swarmed above them. It may have been premature to confirm the absence of life in the City of the Dead but the whispers of the rustling above them promised death and decay, Magdalene felt it in her bones. Gad Hassan swung his torch about wildly.

“What was that?” Jonathan trembled.

“Sounds like…bugs.” Rick pressed his gun to his chest like an infant in need of protection.

Evy stage whispered to the rest of them. “He said bugs.”

Gad whimpered. “What do you mean, bugs? I hate bugs.”

“Oh, grow up.” Magdalene was scornful. Imagine being afraid of a silly little insect.

Rick led them out, tentatively, inch by inch into a large chamber.

“The legs of Anubis.” Evy pointed out. “The secret compartment should be hidden somewhere inside here.”

Another noise. This time echo-y, like footsteps in an empty corridor. Rick thrust his torch at Evy and grabbed his second gun from its shoulder holster. Whilst Magdalene took her dagger from her waist, Jonathan and Gad Hassan took out their own pistols. Jonathan’s was woefully small but certainly better than a dagger, Magdalene had no argument there. They waited for a breath or two, leant against the bed of the statue of Anubis and swung round to aim at the threat.

The Americans. Joys.

“You scared the bejesus out of us O’Connell.” Henderson breathed a sigh of relief.

Rick smiled. “Likewise.”

Suddenly Burns peeled his eyes away from all the lethal weaponry being lowered to notice a familiarity in the toolkit Evy was holding.

“Hey, that’s my tool kit.” He moved to grab it and everyone’s guns went back up.

“I don’t think so.” Rick was firm.

“Okay! Perhaps I was mistaken.” He said.

Magdalene stashed her dagger. “Have a nice day, gents. We have ourselves a lot to do and you’re cramping up the chamber.”

Doctor Chamberlain wriggled his way to the front of the crowd.

“Push off!” He said rudely. “This is our dig site.”

Evy narrowed her eyes and grit her teeth. “We got here first.”

Everyone re-cocked their guns. Magdalene rolled her eyes at the typical, violent men.

Daniels spat, “This here’s our statue, friend.”

“I don’t see your name written on it…pal.” Rick said.

Did everyone have to be so sarcastic in this place? It was giving Magdalene a headache.

Beni gave his little weedy smile that made Magdalene want to punch his teeth out. “Yes, well, there’s only four of you and fifteen of me. Your odds are not so great, O’Connell.”

As he spoke, Magdalene watched Evy shift some sand down into a gap in the floor surreptitiously under the brim of her hat. She was planning something and it involved whatever was or was not under the floor.

Rick held his jaw firm and kept an unwavering aim with his guns. “I’ve had worse.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Jonathan earned a very confused look from Rick. He nodded his assurance to the American.

Evy moved in between the stand-off. “Oh, look, for goodness’ sake, let’s be nice children.” She played the chiding mother perfectly. “If we’re going to play together, we must learn to share. There are other places to dig.”

She put a hand on Rick’s arm, her last sentence loaded with implication. Magdalene made eye contact and nodded at her imperceptibly, understanding the ruse as she put two and two together.  They left, innocent faces on behalf of the two women and guarded scowls from everyone else.

Soon, Rick was using a pick axe to break through the ceiling, seemingly unperturbed by the dust falling down onto the side of his face.

“According to these hieroglyphics we’re underneath the statue. We should come up right between his legs.” Evy said.

Magdalene loved Evy’s plan, it was genius. She sat watching them work, drawing shapes in the sand with the unlit end of the torch she was holding for them. Jonathan clearly thought it was a good idea as well.

“When those damn Yanks go to sleep, no offense -” He said.

“None taken.” Rick swung his pick axe again.

“We’ll dig our way up and steel that book right out from under them.” Jonathan finished, gesticulating wildly with a hammer to emphasise his point.

Rick took the heavy tool off him; hammer privileges were not for those who swung them round like toys.

“Are you sure we can find this secret compartment?” He asked.

Evy poked the ceiling with a stick. “Ugh, yes, if those beastly Americans haven’t beaten us to it. No offense.”

“None taken.”

Rick shot Magdalene a look, begging for sympathy but she shrugged at him and grinned.

Jonathan looked about suspiciously. “Where’d our smelly little friend get to?”

Magdalene snorted. “Who cares? He’s doing whatever and we don’t have to smell him.”


	5. Squashed hat

They’d end up having to wait, having gone as far as they could upwards without alerting the other camp that they were about to steal the book of Amun-Ra out from under their nose. Jonathan had initially tried to teach Magdalene the rules of golf, but it was pointless; Evy was telling stories of Ancient Egyptian rituals and Magdalene was desperate to find out all she could, stories were her breadfruit after all.

“Let me get this straight.” Rick stopped her regaling tales of the Ancient civilisation. “They ripped out your guts and stuffed them in jars.”

“And then they’d take out your heart as well.” Evy was in her element.

Magdalene lay on her stomach on the sandy floor, hands between her chin and the sand, fingers laced together in a makeshift pillow. “Woah.”

“Oh, and do you know how they took out your brains?”

“Evy, I don’t think we need to know this.” Jonathan tried lightening the mood. He clearly already knew.

Magdalene begged her to go on with wide, pleading eyes.

“They’d take a sharp, red-hot poker, stick it up your nose, scramble things about a bit and then rip it all out through your nostrils.” She mimed as she spoke, using a metal tent peg.

Rick stroked his nose and looked ill. “Ooh, that’s gotta hurt.”

“It’s called mummification, you’ll be dead when they do this.” Evy was ever the one to reassure people with the thought of death.

“For the record; if I don’t make it out of here, don’t put me down for mummification.” Rick informed Evy’s brother.

“Likewise.” He said, hitting a rock against the wall like a golfer.

Simultaneously, a great object fell from the ceiling and the debris landed heavily on Magdalene.

“Maddie!” Evy yelled.

Rick cried out her name again and dragged her from underneath the rubble, flipping wooden boards and bits of stone off her back and legs. She was coughing and spluttering as she back-peddled away from the heavy stone object that had fallen through. Three inches further back and that is what she would have been stuck under. Evy fussed over her cuts brushed dust from her clothes as if they were as clean and unworn as her own. She almost felt like a child pampered by her mother after a nasty fall.

“Scamp, you alright?” Rick asked.

“I’m fine, I got a bump on the head not a bullet to the chest.” Magdalene rolled her eyes and secured her hat back on top of her head once she had saved it from a rock and un-squashed it.

The women locked eyes and Evy sent her a reassuring smile. Magdalene smiled back in gratitude. Jonathan winced and turned around. It was his fault the coffin had been disturbed enough to fall through and almost killed their little tag-along. Everyone was getting quite fond of Magdalene, not that she would have guessed. She had no idea just how much they all liked the unusual, feral, curious, lanky girl, just that they seemed to be willing to put up with the warden so they were willing to put up with her.

“Oh, my God…” Evy breathed, once the dust had settled and they stopped coughing. “It’s a…it’s a sarcophagus...”

Magdalene clutched at Evy’s arm in excitement, bruises forgotten, and they all looked up.

“…Buried at the base of Anubis. He must have been someone of great importance.” Evy’s focus was back on the ancient coffin. “Or he did something very naughty.”

She and Rick shared a look and Magdalene clutched a little harder. They began clearing off the sand whilst Jonathan held the light for them all to read by.

“Well, who is it?” He demanded, a little anxious after nearly squashing the youngest member of the group.

Magdalene didn’t blame him for what happened but her reassurance had little effect.

“'He That…Shall Not Be Named’.” Evy read the hieroglyphs.

“You can read those?” Magdalene asked, astounded the little pictures meant anything.

Rick blew on the sand to reveal a scarab beetle carved into a metal star. “This looks like some sort of a lock.”

Jonathan frowned. “Well, whoever’s in here sure wasn’t getting out.” He pointed out rather obviously to the others.

“Yeah, no kidding.” Rick wasn’t in the mood for humour. “It’d take us a month to crack into this thing without a key.”

“A key?” Evy began to think. “A key! A key! Now that’s what he was talking about!”

“W-who was talking about what?” Rick asked.

Jonathan and Magdalene shrugged, oblivious.

Evy was rooting in a bag. “The man on the barge. The one with the hook. He was looking for a key.”

“The one who tried to stab me?” Magdalene looked at the little tin box Evy was holding.

Jonathan saw it too. “Hey, that’s mine.” Which got him a rather sour look from his little sister.

She placed it carefully into the lock and smiled at them all as it fit until a scream ripped through the room.

Everyone looked to its source in fear. Magdalene tore out her dagger and crouched low. Rick ran at the screams with his gun in hand, predictable but brave nonetheless. The others followed his prompt but not before Magdalene tossed Jonathan his precious tin box-come-key.  
They med Gad Hassan scratching at his own head in pain, tortured in his screams and contorting like a mad man. He flung himself down the corridor and past the group, still screaming as he ran faster than would be expected from a man his stature. They looked on, unable to say or do anything before he ran himself into a stone wall and crushed his own skull, killing himself instantly.

Jonathan’s jaw dropped. Rick stared wide-eyed. Magdalene covered her mouth with her hands. Evy paled as she walked to the body and closed his eyes.


	6. Watch it Carnahan! (Alternatively: Can I call him brooding?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the three users and the guests who have left kudos, and the subscriptions and bookmarks. Feel free to comment on anything, a critique or complement, I like to hear from my readers. - TMP

They had set up a camp as the night closed in around them. Desert nights were bitterly cold without anything to use as a windbreak and Magdalene’s tatty shirt and breeches too short for her could not keep the wind from pricking at her skin and chilling her body. She had huddled next to Evy, a blanket draped over her shoulders and around her neck, pretending to comfort her about the death of their acquaintance. Not that she didn't want to comfort the woman she was beginning to see as some sort of role model, but there were definite ulterior motives also.

“What do you suppose killed him?” Evy asked, struck by the loss and nigh-on emotionless.

“Did you ever see him eat?” Jonathan said sarcastically, staring at the fire.

“Have some respect.” Magdalene huddled closer, shaken up a little by the death herself. “He’s dead.”

Rick walked over from the other camp and set his shotgun down. “Seems that our American friends had a little misfortune of their own today.”

Everyone turned to him questioningly.

“Three of their diggers were, uh…melted.” He finished, swallowing the bitter taste of the word back down his throat.

“What?” Evy gasped.

Magdalene blanched. “Melted?!”

Jonathan lent forward. “How?”

“Salt acid.” Rick said, enunciating each word as if he couldn’t believe it. “Pressurised salt acid. Some kind of ancient booby trap.”

He gazed out at the desert, as if expecting to see something other than the night. Jonathan looked around their camp in fear.

“Maybe this place really is cursed.” He said.

The wind blew and the fire was nearly extinguished. The four of them shivered slightly, Rick and Jonathan sharing a look.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, you two! You’re scaring Maddie!” Evy scolded.

Magdalene looked at her. “They are not!”

“You’ve been huddling closer to me all evening.”

“I’m cold is all.” She sat further away, wrapped her blanked round tighter and readjusted her hat on her head.

“You don’t believe in curses?” Rick’s tone said everything as he poked the fire.

“No. I don’t. I believe if I can see it and I can touch it, it’s real. That’s what I believe.” Evy was adamant.

Rick’s tone became dry. “I believe in being prepared.” He pumped his shotgun with a loud clack.

“Right.” Jonathan dug into a bag. “Let’s see what our friend the warden believed in.”

The leather bag was large and heavy with various objects and miscellaneous items. They waited whilst he rummaged until he gave a cry of pain. They all screamed, Rick instantly lifted the gun to the bag and aimed.

“My God! What is it?” Evy shrieked.

“Oh, a broken bottle.” Jonathan dived back into the bag and pulled out a bottle as Evy relaxed. “Glenlivet. Twelve years old! He may have been a stinky fellow, but he had good taste.”

“Scotch, yum.” Magdalene agreed.

She took the bottle and uncorked it, taking a hefty gulp. It would warm her up nicely. Evy chuckled. The wind carried a distance horse braying and Rick pricked up. He thrust his shotgun at Evy and took a revolver out of his boot to give to Magdalene.

“Take this. Stay here. You too scamp.”

Evy scrambled up. “No, wait, wait! Wait for me. Wait!”

“Evy!” Jonathan grabbed the bottle from Magdalene and they both followed. “Excuse me, but didn’t the man just say, ‘stay here’? Evy!”

The growing shadow of fear that Magdalene had felt on the whole boat journey to Egypt suddenly resurged with a vengeance. She took hold of that shadow and shook it about. She was in the midst of the greatest adventure of her life, she was sure nothing like this would happen again, and she would look it in the eye without any fear.

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and a hoard of men dressed like the night came flooding through a gap in the wall on horseback. They hollered battle cries and came with flaming torches and guns, shooting at the diggers working for the Americans and destroying tents. Mass chaos ensued as men ran away from the gunfire, many were shot by the attacking army of expert soldiers. Doctor Chamberlain, still in that ridiculous fez and clutching onto his open umbrella as if he could float away, ran screaming past her to his brash, westernised, uncouth business partners.

“Mr. Henderson!” He screamed. “Wake up!”

Henderson walked out and surveyed the madness before taking out his guns and firing like mad at anything clad in black, Burns to his right doing the same, caught short halfway through shaving.

“Whoo!” Henderson laughed as he shot three men on horses in quick succession.

“Oh, you are loud.” Magdalene frowned crossly and fiddled with the revolver in her hand, it took her only a few moments to become exasperated with not being able to figure out how to fire the damn contraption and tucking it into her waistband.

She marched smartly up to one of the assassins with a rifle. Tapping him on the shoulder he turned around and she punched him square in the jaw, a move she learnt from being given the odd combat lesson here and there by well-meaning men on the road. He fell back and let go of the gun so she picked it up and smacked him round the temple with it, knocking him unconscious.

Rick ran past her and hid behind one of the ancient walls, picking off the desert people as they rode past him. He always looked very impressive with two guns in his hands and admirable in his courage and marksmanship but Magdalene’s stomach churned at the thought of killing someone in cold blood. Unconscious was just as effective as dead and despite being a homeless ruffian who went where the wind took her, she just didn’t have it in her.

Evy ran about the dig site, too overwhelmed with all the confusion to do anything, let alone aim with the shotgun. A cry came up from behind her and she span round to see a man bearing down on her, horse ready to trample her to the sand. She screamed in fright and fired the shotgun out of reflex, killing the rider and frightening the horse enough for it to veer from colliding with her.

It was more humorous accident than purposeful good shot.

A few feet away, Jonathan took another drink of the whiskey they had found, watching everything going on from behind a waist-high wall. He took the vaguest aim and shot drunkenly at anything on a horse. One of the bullets whizzed past Magdalene’s head as she was dragging another unconscious body.

“Watch it Carnahan!” She scolded.

He held up a hand to her by way of apology as Beni snatched the bottle from his hand and began drinking heavily from it. Turning around Beni saw a seasoned warrior galloping towards them, battle cry to the air and lethal sword raised to the sky. He spat out the drink. Wasteful. The pair ran as fast as they could, the warrior keeping easy pace with Jonathan.

“Hey! What did I say to-” Magdalene was knocked back by Jonathan, trailing off as she watched the warrior expertly lead his horse to leap over the wall, keeping perfectly upright and twirling his curved sword with skill.

If anything was to be said of Magdalene by those who knew briefly knew her, it was that she was easily distracted. It was what kept her a traveller and stopped her from staying in one place for too long. She always found something to capture her attention so completely she had no qualms about leaving behind wherever she already was. So impressed was she by the skill of the exotic warriors, she dropped the man she was dragging and ran through the crowds, following Jonathan. Probably a disadvantage of being distracted easily, she took no heed of the imminent danger.

“O’Connell!” Jonathan screamed, about to be sliced to bits.

Rick heard the shriek for help and launched himself off the raised vantage point. He barrelled himself into the Egyptian, knocking him off his horse. The two rolled onto the sand and Magdalene caught sight of his face, with tattoos on each cheek.

Brandishing his sword, he was caught unawares when Rick fired at him and shot the sword from his grip. Not so invincible now.

“Rick! Behind!” Magdalene called out.

Rick span around to shoot another warrior, missing, but unsettling his balance and he fell of his horse. This gave the first swordsman time retrieve his weapon and slash at Rick’s pistol. Rick was left gun-less as the man slashed again, forced to fall back and roll forward to the fire.  
From one of his numerous pockets, holsters and the like, Rick produced a stick of dynamite and lit it from the fire. The warrior stood, stopped, and glanced at it in trepidation. Rick’s expression was enough to make Magdalene fearful.

“Enough! Yallah!” The strange man called out in a thick accent and his men stopped the attack.

He moved forward, whether to use his sword or to speak, Magdalene didn’t wait to find out. She drew her dagger and squatted low, one leg in front of the other to attack if need be and hissed at him. With her narrowed eyes glinting in fire light, crouched position and bared teeth, she looked more cat-like than ever before.

He regarded her with less suspicion than he had Rick, more surprise. His expression belied that he didn’t think of Magdalene as much of a threat. Her lip curled up in a snarl and he stopped looking at her.

He wore black clothing with a sash around his waist, the desert clothes suited him well, he was dark and brooding, if Magdalene could be permitted to call a man she hadn’t met ‘brooding’. His stance commanded all the power of a great leader and his posture gave away both his lithe body and physical strength. He was certainly handsome but it was marred by the fact that he was trying to kill them.

On the other hand, it made him more attractive in the sense that Magdalene felt drawn to him. Yet again it was the sense of adventure that pulled her in. She wouldn’t apologise for having such a one-track mind, she was obsessed with the extraordinary. Was it the air of mystery? Oh yes. Was this man mysterious? You’d be lying if you said no.

He spoke. “We will shed no more blood, but you must leave. Leave this place or die. You have one day.”

He stalked away, radiating power and threat, and mounted a horse.

“You’re gonna need to pick up the rest of your crew.” Magdalene spoke up, sheathing her dagger. "This is yours too I believe." She picked up the rifle she had taken from the first of the gunmen and threw it at him. She walked up behind Rick who was still holding out the stick of dynamite.

He caught the rifle one handed, tossing it to a fellow desert warrior.

“What of my men?” He looked at her questioningly and she pointed at a pile of men, there must have been five or six of them, all unconscious, in a heap. A final one flopped out from behind a wall and rolled down a sand bank.

“You did this?” He asked.

She shifted all her weight onto one foot and shrugged at him. “Beats killing them, doesn’t it?”

Rick stared at her incredulously as some of the strange men collected up their unconscious brethren and their leader mounted his horse again. “I worry about you, scamp.”

“Yallah! Imshi!” The leader called, turning his horse around, and the entire hoard disappeared as quickly as they came.

Rick tugged the fuse out of the explosive and saw Evy lying on her back. “Evelyn.” He took his shotgun off her and threw it down, helping her up gently. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Rick lifted her chin gently with his thumb and checked for injuries.

She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

“That proves it.” Daniels complained, scared out of his wits by the attack. “Old Seti’s fortune’s got to be under this sand.”

Henderson shared his opinion. “For them to protect it like this, you know there’s treasure down there.”

“No.” Rick watched after the mortal apparitions, hands firmly on Evy’s waist. “These men are desert people. They value water, not gold.”

Burns approached him, sheepish. “You know, uh, maybe just at night, we could, uh, combine forces, hmm?”

Magdalene patted him on the back and he let out a whimper of fright. “Aw, we’ll protect you, Sir.” She gave her cheeky grin.


	7. Is he supposed to look like that?

They headed back to their own camp, they wouldn’t move until the day after, assured it was unlikely anything else could go wrong that night.  
Jonathan was firmly asleep, clutching the bottle of whiskey, or what was left of it. Magdalene knew she should be asleep, but the adventures were catching up with her and her mind was spinning. This was the best adventure yet. Besides, Rick and Evy were being adorable and who could pass up seeing that? Not her.

Rick had managed to get Evy drunk to stop her from panicking about what had happened and was now jokingly teaching her how to fight.

“Hey, tough stuff, try a right hook. Ball up your fist and put it-” He lifted her uncoordinated limb “put it up like that.”

“Mm-hmm.”

She was slurring her words and her movements, wobbling about like one of those popular Japanese dolls Magdalene had discovered in an obscure oriental shop in the middle of Chicago.

“And then mean it. Hit it right here.” He slapped his hand.

“I mean it! Oh!” Evy missed completely and swung around, falling into Ricks arms. It was all Magdalene could do not to chuckle.

Rick sat her down, she had become even more unsteady. “Okay. Okay, it’s time for another drink.”

Evy pointed vaguely before she grabbed the bottle and started drinking. “Unlike my brother, Sir…I know when to say no.” She made a face at the drink whilst he watched her.

“And unlike your brother, Miss, you I just don’t get.” Rick was clearly enamoured with her.

“Ah!” She wafted her hand at him. “I know. You’re wondering…” She took a pause to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. “What is a place like me doing…in a girl like this?”

Rick chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Egypt is in my blood.” She explained, digging about her décolletage for a locket. “You see, my-my father…was a very…very famous explorer. 

And he loved Egypt so much he married my mother who was an Egyptian and quite an adventurer herself.”

Rick pointed at the images, then Jonathan. “I get your father, and I get your mother, and uh, I get him. But…what are you doing here?”

Evy made a disgusted scoffing noise, like she had on the river boat when he told her the kiss had meant nothing.

“Look, I-I may not be…an explorer, or-or an adventurer…” She stood up on wobbly legs. “Or a treasure seeker or a gunfighter Mister O’Connell. But I am proud of what I am.”

“And…what is that?” Rick was apprehensive.

“I…” Evy thought for the word. “Am a librarian.”

She proudly smiled at the stars and dropped heavily to her knees. “And I am going to kiss you Mr. O’Connell.”

Rick was taken aback by her declaration but held himself together well. He played the card of the smooth, charismatic gentleman. “Call me Rick.”

She smiled at him brightly, teeth all white and straight. “Oh. Rick.”

They inched closer together, until Evy dropped unconscious in his arms, never having kissed him. Rick mumbled to himself, confused and sorely missing a kiss. Magdalene bit her lip and rolled over, cherishing the moment of hilarity she had witnessed.

When morning broke, Magdalene was the first awake. Lifting her bag from the pile, she walked out a few paces into the desert behind a wall. There was no comfort of laundry, spare clothes or facilities, but she didn’t mind. She had spent longer in one pair of clothes than she would here. Taking a small leather canteen out of her bag, she uncorked it, pooled a tiny amount of water into her cupped palm and rubbed it across her brow, underneath her fringe. Another splash on the back of her neck below her short hairline. A sip from the same container she swilled around her mouth to rid herself of morning breath and swallowed. There would be no spitting water into the sand here, it was wasteful.  
Looking out, she imagined the life of the soldiers they encountered the night before, wandering the desert on horseback, never with a true home. They were like her. But she wasn’t sure if she could roam the same land forever, or roam in such a large tribe. It was the love of isolation and new landscapes that drove her across the Atlantic back when she was younger.

They were soon down with the sarcophagus, where their mummy had been entombed since his death. Rick, Jonathan and Magdalene heaved the stone casket upright against a wall whilst Evy flapped about impatiently. She was starting to squawk and Magdalene was worrying for her sanity.

“Oh, I’ve dreamt about this since I was a little girl.” She said.

Rick seemed insulted. “You dream about dead guys?”

She touched the coffin in shock. “Oh. Look, his sacred spells have been chiselled off. This man must have been condemned not only in this life but in the next.”

“Tough break.” Rick quipped.

Jonathan was struggling to twist the key in the lock. “Yeah, I’m all tears. Now, let’s see who’s inside, shall we?”

The two men struggled to open up the sarcophagus, grunting with the effort. Magdalene and Evy held hands in anticipation.

“This is the best thing I’ve done in my whole life.” Magdalene whispered.

“Me too.” Evy whispered back.

The lid sprang back and a hideous mummy reared up at them. Everyone screamed their heads off. Magdalene was so scared she jumped at Jonathan and hid her face in his neck. He ended up taking most of her weight and staggered about trying to support her.

“Oh, my God, I hate it when these things do that.” Evy’s breath was ragged.

Rick pointed at the mummy, his nose wrinkled up. “Is he supposed to look like that?”

The mummy was glistening and looked as if it had been doused in oil and sludge. Magdalene squirmed and Jonathan nearly fell over again.

“No.” Evy peered at it. “I’ve never seen a mummy look like this before. He’s still…still…”

“Juicy.” Jonathan and Rick said.

“Yes. H-he must be more than three thousand years old and…well, it looks as if he’s still…decomposing.” Evy was unperturbed by the thought.

“I am going to be sick.” Magdalene declared. She still hadn’t unlatched herself from Jonathan’s torso.

Rick pointed at the sarcophagus lid. “Hey, look at that. What do you make of this?”

They all crouched in front of the lid, it was covered in scratches.

“My God, these marks were made with…” Evy put her hand to the scratches. “…fingernails. This man was buried alive. And he left a message.”

She shifted round and read the script. “'Death is only the beginning.’”

Magdalene stared at the mummy and whimpered.


	8. This wasn't in the handbook

Evy let the boys shift their camp to join the other group for the rest of the night, wrangling Magdalene into staying with the mummy a little longer to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.

Magdalene had to admit, once she had been around the mummy for a while, it was less intimidating, and Evy’s constant chatter about the Ancient Egyptians captivated almost all her attention. She left earlier, however, in order to make sure she got some of the whiskey left over from before to bolster her confidence.

She was sat conversing with Jonathan, who was detailing one of his escapades to her and Beni when the Americans sauntered over.  
Henderson waggled a jar with an animal head inlayed with gold at them all. “Say, O’Connell, what do you think these babies’ll fetch back home?”

They sat down as Burns joined the conversation. “We hear you boys found yourselves a nice gooey mummy. Well congratulations.”

“Yeah Burns, your mother’s complexion isn’t too great these days.” Magdalene said.

“What did you say?” He drew his pistol but Daniels yanked his arm down.

“If you dry that fella out, you might be able to sell him for firewood.”

Rick mock laughed with them all, but Magdalene was having none of it.

“You realise what those are, don’t you fellas?” She employed some knowledge Evy had given them all. The Americans looked bemused. “Your canopic jars were used to store the bits of the mummies the Egyptian’s removed after death. You got yourself sacred jars with the ashes of guts, lungs and heart shoved inside them.”

Daniels put his canopic jar down.

“Look what I found!” Evy joined them.

Rick looked at Beni, who was sat in between him and Jonathan. “You’re in her seat.”

Beni laughed.

“Now!”

“Yup.” He scrambled away and let Evy sit.

“Scarab skeletons, flesh eaters. I found them inside our friend’s coffin. They can stay alive for years feasting on the flesh of a corpse.” She handed them around. “Unfortunately for our friend, he was still alive when they started eating him.”

Rick took the opportunity to make the other Americans even more uncomfortable. “So, somebody threw these in with our guy, and then they slowly ate him alive?”

Evy took great pleasure in what she said next. “Very slowly.”

Jonathan smiled at them all. “He certainly wasn’t a popular fellow when they planted him, was he?”

Rick scoffed. “Well, he probably got a little too frisky with the pharaoh’s daughter.”

Evy laughed. “Well according to my readings, our friend suffered the Hom-Dai.”

Magdalene scooted closer, sensing another story.

She continued. “The worst of all Ancient Egyptian curses. One reserved only for the most evil of blasphemers. In my research, I’ve never heard of this curse having actually been performed.”

“That bad, huh?” Rick was curious.

“Yes, well, they-they never used it because they feared it so. It’s written that if a victim of the Hom-Dai should ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt.”

“They didn’t really think that one through, did they?” Magdalene said dryly. “Why not, if he arises, his bones have been aging over so many centuries, he disintegrates to ash anyway? That’s much more realistic.”

“Realistic?” Rick asked.

“Yeah. You’d have to think of something much more realistic if you were gonna go around telling the story. If it’s too fantastical then people ain’t going to believe it.”

“You want to make this a book?” Burns looked at her as if she had lost her brain.

She gave him a look. “I travel. Stories are all I’m interested in.”

They stayed awake talking, though really with the small amount of sleep they were running on it was unwise for them to be doing so. Daniels produced a bottle and they passed it round, it was beginning to feel a lot like some of the nights Magdalene had spent camping in woods with hunters and the homeless like her.

“So tell me scamp.” Henderson looked at the girl. “How do you know how to drink?”

“Only Mr O’Connell can call me that. And I practised.” She said.

“When did you start to practise drinking?” Jonathan asked, already worse for the wear.

She arched her eyebrow and took another gulp before passing the bottle back to Rick.

“I spent three weeks in an attic above a brothel-house by the docks in England, just before I went to America. All they do is drink.” She said. “And…you know the drill.”

“Heavens!” Evy was mortified. “You weren’t…?”

“A prostitute, Miss Evy? Not likely, I was fourteen.”

They looked at her, some slightly horrified, some sympathetic.

“What?” Magdalene looked around and laughed. “Oh, be off with you all! It could have been worse, I could have been trapped with that gooey mummy.”

They all laughed, the joke banishing all awkward feelings towards her.

“Young scamp’s got gumption.” Henderson smiled. “We could make a proud American of you yet.”

“I’ve seen the way you drink, I’m not that good.” She replied and tipped her hat to them.

Rick ruffled her hair and called her scamp again, she swatted him away with her hat and leant against Jonathan’s shoulder; he was becoming quite the brother figure to her.

Burns tossed another log onto the fire and wiped at his glasses. “Any of you ready for some shut-eye?”

Henderson laughed. “You guys can stay here and guard the fort while we take the baby to bed.”

The three left, Burns protesting at being called a baby, leaving the smaller party to sit by the fire. Soon, everyone was asleep except Evy and Magdalene, including Doctor Chamberlain, clutching a canopic jar and the black book they had found within the chest buried at the base of Anubis.

Magdalene watched Evy prise it from his hand and tiptoe back over to their side of the camp, grinning. Perhaps the Englishwoman wasn’t such the lady after all.

“That’s called stealing, you know.”

So maybe Rick was not asleep either.

Evy rustled around for the key to their mummy’s sarcophagus. “According to you and my brother; it’s called borrowing.”

Magdalene joined them at the bench, desperate to see what was inside the book. Evy had her hooked on learning about the ancient civilisation.

“I thought the Book of Amun-Ra was made out of gold.” Rick said.

Magdalene rolled her eyes. “Who cares? This is the greatest thing I’ve seen in my life. And I’ve seen a drunk man do an Irish river dance.”

“It is made out of gold.” Evy explained. “This isn’t the Book of Amun-Ra. This is something else. I think this may be the Book of the Dead.”  
She opened up the key and fit it into the lock.

Rick was not happy. “The Book of the Dead? Are you sure you want to be playing around with this thing?”

“It’s just a book.” She opened it. “No harm ever came from reading a book.”

The wind shrieked and moaned at them, billowing at the fire. Magdalene felt a shiver run through her and the beginnings of a headache.

“That happens a lot around here.” Rick said. Eventually, temptation got to him and he peered over Evy’s shoulder. “So, what’s it say?”

Magdalene joined him and looked at all the pictures, amazed that this made sense to anyone.

“Amun Ra. Amun Dei. It speaks of the night and of the day.” She read out the first passage of the book in Egyptian, Rick and Magdalene listened intently.

“No!”

They jumped as Doctor Chamberlain sat up and screamed at them, as if reading the book woke him up.

“You must not read from the book!”

A wind blew in and they looked to the East. Jonathan woke up and blinked blearily at the sudden drop in temperature. Soon, everyone was up and staring with them. Magdalene took the revolver from her trousers that Rick had let her keep, shouldering her holdall and holding her hat steady on her head.

A dim rustle like autumn leaves grew louder and louder until a swarm of locusts were upon them, looking like a demonic cloud. They ran back, Rick shouting for them to move faster, the locusts flew into them, heedless of the obstructions and it felt like being punched from all sides. It was like a tidal wave of insects, terrifying and unstoppable.

“What have we done?” Doctor Chamberlain made no move to flee, dejected and broken. Magdalene thought he was crazy.


	9. Dandy in the face of danger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay, I have been extremely busy packing for university and have had trouble with the previously saved chapters. Please enjoy this chapter and favourite, also if possible please comment your feedback so I can edit the story accordingly.

They split from the Americans, who all ran faster than they did, too afraid to wait for anybody else. The four of them stuck close together, not wanting to find out what would happen if they got lost in the catacombs of the City of the Dead.

A tremor shook the ground, Evy clutched her brother for support but Magdalene fell over.

“Maddie, are you alright?” Rick helped her up by offering her the barrel of his shotgun to pull herself up with.

“Oh, I’m dandy.” She dusted herself off.

The rumble from the tremor was replaced by a higher-pitched sound and the ground burst open with thousands of black beetles, squeaking and piercingly shrill, the light from the torch illuminating their shiny bodies.

“Scarabs!” Evy screamed.

“Run, Evy! Go, go, go!” Jonathan yelled, spurring on the team.

“Run!” Rick shouted, as if it needed repeating, and shot at the swarm. As if it would make a difference killing off a few of them when there were at least fifty more that could take their place.

“Why didn’t that stupid old Prof tell us why that book was so dangerous in the first place?” Magdalene was panting from exhaustion.

“Shut up Maddie and run!” Jonathan insisted.

They jumped off the path, Evy and Magdalene hiding in an alcove whilst the men jumped onto the remnants of some of the old stone pillars. Surprisingly, the scarabs paid them no attention. They seemed on a set course and not out for food, but the two women were a lot closer to the insects than the men were and inched away accordingly whilst holding onto one another for support.

But they leant back too far and suddenly there was no wall behind them. Evy tried to keep her balance by gripping onto the sides of the walls, in vain as Magdalene tripped over her own feet and fell backwards. Their combined weight was enough to send them over the edge and the hinged part of the wall swung back into place after them and wouldn’t budge.

They struggled on the other side of the wall, and heard Evy’s brother and their guide calling for Evy. They seemed confused not frightened. So, they were so preoccupied with the scarabs that they hadn’t seen where they had fallen, to them it appeared as if they had just vanished.

Magdalene turned to Evy. “Trust them to be worried about you and not me. Typical. They’re only interested if they’re related to you or they got the hots for you.”

“Maddie, I don’t think now is the time.”

They looked around and Magdalene turned sombre, a dark corridor, no sign of a doorway and no sign of anybody else. A strangled moan came from around the corner and they froze against the wall, locking hands for comfort and a sense of security.

Evy mouthed, “One, two, three.”

They swung round to spot where the noise emanated from and found Burns with his back to them.

“Oh. Oh, Mr Burns. Thank goodness.” Evy was relieved, Magdalene still too scared out of her wits to talk. “We were just starting to get scared. “We’ve lost everyone. I-”

He turned around, two gaping holes where his eyes used to be. Magdalene brought her hands to the side of her face and screamed.

“My eyes. My eyes.” He mumbled.

A growl came from the shadows and the mummy loomed into view from the filtered moonlight. Evy screamed in his face, pure terror ripping through her bones. Burns fell to his knees, all sense of balance lost and the two girls backed away. Magdalene slammed herself into the wall and watched as the mummy came closer and closer. She inched further away into the corner but Evy was stuck, the mummy locking eyes with her, locking Burns’ eyes with her.

“Miss Evy, what do I do?” She whispered, unable to help the woman.

“Oh…oh…” Evy couldn’t think, couldn’t move. She looked at a retreating Burns. “Please help us.”

She seemed amazingly calm, her voice perfectly level. Shock would do that to you.

“My tongue. He took my tongue.” Burns mumbled.

“Please don’t leave me.” She begged.

The mummy turned back to Evy with a growl. “Anck-Su-Namun?”

Magdalene took out the revolver and fumbled with it. She had never shot a gun and still wasn’t sure how it worked. Pulling back the hammer she raised it and closed her eyes in preparation for the recoil. Realising she couldn’t aim blind she forced them open, forced herself to look at the mummy and squeezed the trigger. She missed.

“Dammit!” She screamed and tried to fire again.

The mummy was offering his hand to Evy, who was squirming, wishing she could disappear into the wall. Rick ran past a doorway and noticed them.

“There you are! Will you quit playing hide-and-seek? Come on. Let’s get out of here.” He grabbed Evy’s hand, but noticed her fixed gaze and followed it to find the mummy, alive and walking.

“Whoa!” He bellowed, petrified.

“Evy!” Jonathan and the other two Americans came running in, only to stop in a horror similar to Rick’s. Magdalene fired off another round and missed a second time.

“I can’t shoot straight Rick, do something!” She cried.

The mummy screamed at them, his jaw unhinged and hanging from his skull. Rick screamed back, trying to intimidate it with a battle cry and shot at it with his shotgun. A far better aim than Magdalene, he blasted through his torso, eliciting a whine of pain from the creature.

“Move!” He shoved Evy through the passage way, no one in the mood to suggest another course of action.

Daniels was insensible. “Did you see that? It was walking. It was walking!”

“Yes, I think we’ve all discovered that one!” Jonathan retorted.

They came to a halt as they met Doctor Chamberlain on his knees, clutching the Book of the Dead and a line of the Egyptians who had attacked them the night before, all aiming guns at them. The one Rick had fought before pulled down a cloth covering his face and addressed them with a grave look.

Magdalene reaffirmed her original description of him as ‘brooding’.

* * *

“I told you to leave or die. You refused.”

Ardeth glared at them, his message getting across loud and clear. These people were foolish and were incapable of listening to reason, but even the most unwise of men would listen to fear.

“Technically no.” The impertinent young girl looked thoughtful.

She had a disturbing way of being exceedingly calm when surrounded by weapons. Like a still lake in the middle of a desert oasis, water so clear and calm that if you threw a stone into the centre it would sink without a ripple.

“We couldn’t refuse, you gave us two options, leaving or dying. We just chose death and beat the odds.”

The other woman looked at her as if she had become deranged. “You want to battle semantics with a man who has guns pointed at us?”

It was easier to ignore them. “Now you may have killed us all, for you have unleashed a creature we have feared for more than three thousand years.”

“Relax. I got him.” The man who had fought Ardeth before, the American, was the only one whose hands were not up in surrender. He was an impressive warrior and had a clear effect on his companions.

“No mortal weapon can kill this creature.” Ardeth snapped. “He’s not of this world.”

He stepped aside, two of his men dragged Burns forward and deposited him in the arms of his partners, eyes and tongue still very much missing. No one could say they weren’t disgusted by the sight, although they felt guilty for it.

“You bastards.” Daniels accused them.

Henderson carried on. “What did you do to him?”

“We saved him. Saved him before the creature could finish his work. Leave, all of you, quickly, before he finishes you all.” With that warning, Ardeth ended their conversation.

He watched the youngest of them take in the weapons he carried, all hanging from his robes. He even had, strapped to his waist, a semi-automatic rifle that matched the ones his men were holding. Still she showed no signs of panic. If anything, her eyes lit up in anticipation.

“Yallah. Imshi.” He commanded and they marched into the ruins. “We must now go on the hunt and try and find a way to kill him.”

“I already told you I got him.” The American was angry.

Ardeth stopped and threatened him. “Know this. This creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat, he will never sleep…and he will never stop.”

He was afraid for his life and the lives of those around him. He had failed his forefathers in protecting the earth from the demon, too lenient on the explorers that had invaded the City of the Dead. Now, they were all doomed to lie in the sand beside the mummies of three thousand years ago.

How could they have understood the danger they put themselves in? One of them was little more than a child. She had all the bravado of someone who had never seen the horrors of life and Ardeth knew so many like her. They would all perish because of the foolishness that is caused by greed.

But there was something about her he…admired. To hold steady against a Medjai attack and stand strong, without any sign of fear or loss of heart was a power it seemed many of their party possessed. Yet it was the way she combined this with an untamed spirit that interested Ardeth the most as he wandered through the catacombs of Hamunaptra, she reminded him of the desert which he guarded.


	10. Dreaming of a dead guy

“Time to go.” Jonathan declared and everyone ran for the camp.

Magdalene watched the strange man disappear into the passage they had just escaped, he was a character she had never met before. He bore the brunt of the world in his words and lived by his sword. She wanted to know what his tattoos meant.

Clothes, equipment, anything was thrown into bags. Rick took the revolver off Magdalene, claiming she was more lethal to them than the mummy. They mounted the camels as soon as they could and raced back to Cairo quicker than the sun rose up in the sky. Magdalene was unable to stave off the exhaustion she felt from two nights of poor sleep and nodded off. The headache she had developed when they opened the book had not gone away and she was beginning to feel her brain throbbing against her skull.

* * *

She blinked open her eyes and found herself in pitch black. Just stood there, weightless in the dark. That pull in her stomach returned with a vengeance, a warning against something she didn’t know about but was certain was going to make its presence known fairly quickly.

A man stood in front of her that she would swear all the way to her grave was not there before. His back was turned to her so she could not see his face. He wore a grey cloak that was shredded, more ribbons held together than a robe, but his bald head was uncovered.

“Dreams are powerful. Do not waste them.”

He walked away and disappeared.

* * *

Magdalene woke up from her dream. Still on a camel. Still riding through the desert. Still night. Her headache had left her.

As they reached the limits of the city a huge lightning storm was boiling over, ready to spill. They arrived at the hotel in the late afternoon on worn out camels that had been ridden to their limit. Most of the party was stiff from having sat rigid with fear the whole journey.

Once back at the fort everybody had freshened up and Magdalene was in a new outfit, Evy had insisted on giving her a new set of clothes. Well, she had given her a set of Rick’s clothes. Magdalene had refused to wear a skirt point blank, even going as far to slash at the one provided with her dagger. Her excuse was that no one should wear something with no actual purpose and that trousers gave her freedom to kick butt.

She wore a white shirt with sleeves so long there was more material rolled up than not. They didn’t bother to re-hem the trouser line, however, as most of Magdalene’s unusual height was in her legs, so male garments fitted her well, and she looked like a child on Christmas because she was wearing trousers with legs long enough to accommodate her. She kept her own boots.

This had solidified the almost parental nature with which Rick and both Carnahan siblings viewed the scamp, it was heartbreakingly sweet how much she treasured the teeny luxuries in life that they all expected to be there no matter what.

For example, after washing in Evy’s chambers she had relished the feeling of a scalp that didn’t itch with grime and sand with all the vigour Evy might give a new and thus-far untranslated Ancient Egyptian tome. Or with the enthusiasm Rick would bestow upon a brand-new shotgun. Or Jonathan a bottle of a particular vintage sherry.

But soon, if it was true that the thing they had awakened wasn’t dead, those expected luxuries might not be there at all.

“I thought you said you didn’t believe in that fairy tales and hokum stuff.”

Rick was accusatory towards Evy, throwing her clothes into suitcases and making a fuss of leaving. He did not blame her per say for the mummy walking around Egypt, but the shock had started to wear off and she had read from the book.

“Shoo!” He scared the white cat roaming the hotel.

She took them straight back out. “Having an encounter with a three-thousand-year-old, walking, talking corpse…does tend to convert one.”

“Forget it. We’re out the door, down the hall and we’re gone.” He shoved her under things in.

She took them straight back out. “Oh, no, we are not.”

“Oh, yes, we are.”

“Oh, no, we are not.”

Magdalene’s head was going back and forth in between the pair of them. It was like a tennis match and she had no idea how tennis was even played. It was infuriating when you were playing a game without the rules. In this case there were, of course, rules per say. Except they were written in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and the only one who could read them could now add “mummy reanimation” to her next application to the Bembridge scholar panel.

“We woke him up, and we are going to stop him.” Evy declared.

Magdalene was all fine with staying for the adventure, she couldn’t leave without knowing what was to become of the mummy, but did they really have to be responsible themselves? The brooding man with the well-proportioned face…she could call his face well-proportioned, couldn’t she? The brooding man with the well-proportioned face seemed entirely capable of handling such a supernatural beast.

“‘We’? What we?” Rick threw Evy’s books in the trunk. “We didn’t read that book. I told you not to play around with that thing. Didn’t I tell her not to play around with that thing?”

He looked at Magdalene who just shrugged.

Evy took the books straight back out. “Yes then, me, me, me, me, I, I, I woke him up and I intend to stop him.”

“Oh yeah?” His tone was confrontational. “How? You heard the man, no mortal weapons can kill this guy.”

“Then we are just going to have to find some immortal ones.”

At this Magdalene sniggered. “You want to pop down to the nearest immortal weapons store or shall I find you a catalogue?”

“Not helping Maddie.”

Rick spoke as if Evy were not in the room. “There goes that “we” again.”

They were clearly angry with each other, doing some sort of dance of fury as they tussled with Evy’s belongings. Books, clothes, typewriter, the woman was juggling it all as she argued her point to the bitter end.

“Will you listen to me? We have to do something.”

She was exasperated, slamming shut her suitcase, the lid crushing Rick’s fingers and he cried in pain but she ignored his injuries as she sensed victory and went in for the kill.

“Once this creature has been reborn, his curse is going to spread until the whole of the Earth is destroyed.”

Rick hissed at his throbbing fingers. “Yeah? Is that my problem?”

“It is everybody’s problem.”

“Evelyn, I appreciate you saving my life and all, but when I signed on I agreed to take you out there and to bring you back.” He jabbed his finger at the air. “And I have done that. End of job. End of story. Contract terminated.”

“That’s all I am to you? A contract?” Evy’s voice rose with emotion.

“Look you can either tag along with me or you can stay here and try and save the world! What’s it gonna be?”

Magdalene walked towards the door, tired of bickering children. And she was supposed to be the youngest.

“I’m staying.” Evy would not budge.

“See, Maddie’s got the sense to leave, don’t you Maddie?”

Magdalene turned to hear Rick addressing her. “Oh, I’m staying with Miss Evy, I just want to get a drink. This is the greatest adventure of my life! I’m not passing it up just because I’m scared. I thought you would too, Rick.”

He threw his hands in the air. “Fine!”

“Fine.” Evy shot back.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Rick shut the door behind them and they heard Evy growl in frustration.

They walked into the bar, full of people of all walks of life and all countries, but they were not in the mood to be taking in the cultural delights. Rick bumped into a ruddy-faced man, quite rotund and worse for the wear.

“Hi Winston.” He greeted.

“Ye-uh-you know, O’Connell, ever since the end of the Great War, there hasn’t been a-a single challenge worthy of a man like me.”

Rick gave Jonathan a sympathetic look, the poor man looked absolutely distraught. Magdalene patted his back.

“Yeah? We all got our little problems today, Winston.”

“I just wish I could have chucked it in with the others and gone down in flame and glory.” He carried on.

In his drunkenness, Winston seemed to be addressing thin air, so Magdalene thought it best to pay him attention.

“Instead of sitting around here, rotting of boredom and booze.”

Rick spoke the Captain’s speech word for word, it was clearly a rehearsed affair. The man took Jonathan’s shot of bourbon off him and drank it. Cheers.

“Hello young lass.” He noticed one of the party was not a woman. “Captain Winston Havelock of the Royal Air Force. What are you doing in Egypt then?”

“Adventure.” She replied.

He rocked back on his heels, or he was unable to keep his balance. “Ah, this is the place for it. Say, are you with these fine chaps?”

“Not for much longer. They’re pansying out, too much real excitement in it for them.”

Rick and Jonathan both glared at her. She was in no fit stated to blame anybody and they had every right to feel dejected and leave.

“Oh well, back to the airfield.” The pilot declared, he clapped both men heavily on the back and shook her hand. “Good day to you miss.”

Magdalene downed her drink and stood up. “Right. I came to Egypt to have fun and that’s what I’m going to have.”

She walked over to a legionnaire from the local military fort, who was laughing with his fellow legionnaires and playing a guitar. Rick and Jonathan watched as she smiled sweetly at him and cocked her head coyly. She had all the confidence of a seasoned con-artist. He stood up to talk to her and Jonathan shook his head with a smile as Magdalene took a roll of bills out his pocket under the guise of kissing him on the cheek.

“That girl is way too happy for someone running headlong into death.” Rick said.

She sat next to the soldier and he began to pluck the guitar strings and sing, an old western song for her that Rick knew well.

“Hey Patty Garrett, that’s what I used to call you. They tell me you want me, but I hear they’ve got you.” A few people turned to hear the new song starting up, they noticed they had gathered a small audience and the rest of the soldiers joined in. The tune was a little rough but the locals seemed to enjoy it all the same. Rick tried to complain but Jonathan hit him on the arm as the guitar was plucked with a delicacy that leant a lilting tone to the slow tune.

“Blood money, that’s what I call it, because money for blood ain’t no fair exchange. Bloody money, bought and then sold you but your conscience is all you can take to your grave.”

They clapped and hollered as only drunk men can once the song was over. The legionnaires began singing another song, but Magdalene left them to re-join Rick and Jonathan, slapping down the roll of bills.

“Next round’s on him.” She said.

Rick turned to Jonathan. “Tell me, has your sister always been-?”

“Oh, yes, always.”

Henderson and Daniels walked in, looking extremely sorry for themselves. “Well, we’re all packed up, but the damn boat doesn’t leave till tomorrow morning.”

“Tail set firmly between your legs, I see.” Jonathan took another drink.

Henderson scowled. “You can talk. You don’t have some sacred walkin’ corpse after ya.”

Rick tried a little compassion towards Daniels. “So, uh, how’s your friend?”

“He had his eyes and his tongue ripped out. How would you be?” Daniels had taken recent events to heart more than any of the others.

Magdalene patted him on the shoulder and poured everyone another drink.

“Good luck, boys. And lady.” Henderson toasted and they all swallowed.

The next moment they all spat it out in unison. Everyone else around them spat out their drinks as well.

“Sweet Jesus!” Jonathan wiped at his tongue. “Tasted just like-”

Rick dropped his glass and stared at the centrepiece water fountain. “Blood.”

Magdalene walked up to it and tipped her glass into the fountain, sipping at it. Jonathan and Henderson pulled disgusted faces she paid no regard to.

“It’s sour…and rich.” She said, spitting it onto the floor and grabbing her bag. “That’s not just blood, it’s human blood and it’s been fouled up. We got ourselves a bonified plague.”

Jonathan quoted a direct passage. “‘And the rivers and waters of Egypt ran red…and were as blood.”

Magdalene almost swore that Rick was trembling in fear.

“He’s here.” He said.

“Oh god.”

“Scamp, you still have the revolver in your bag?” Rick asked.

“No you took it off me because I can’t shoot straight.”

“Take it back and come with me.” He ran off after tossing her the gun and she scrambled up to go after him.

They ran through the complex, heavy thunderclouds sinking lower and lower over the city. Magdalene’s heart was in her mouth as she thought of the gruesome mummy they had encountered, but that could have been the remnants of blood in her saliva.

“Oh, Evelyn!” Rick called out.

“Oh, so you’re still here.” Evy was very much still angry with him.

He laughed as he stopped just short of crashing into her, Magdalene panting as she caught up.

“Miss Evy, we’ve got problems.” She said.

A loud roar spread across the sky and all three of them looked up to see the storm had broken. But instead of rain and lightning, they were pelleted with hail and fire was pouring out of the clouds. Buildings and trees were set alight, scorch marks everywhere, people were incinerated by the flame. Evil itself was unleased and the screams of unsuspecting, innocent people rang through the courtyard as they fled away from the plague of fireballs and hailstones. Egypt was set ablaze and the gloom of the day, overcast by storm clouds was illuminated by hellfire.

Magdalene noticed Beni running down the stairs, they made eye contact and he did an about turn to run back up. She grabbed him by his braces and smacked Rick on the shoulder who tackled him to the ground.

“Hey! Beni, you little stinkweed. Where you been?”

They heard an unearthly sound coming from the room above. Magdalene panicked.

“That’s Mr. Burns' room!” She yelped and ran up the stairs.

Evy tried to call her back. “Maddie no!”

They were forced to follow her when they heard her curse, her voice high pitched and panicked. Evy and Rick were met with a gruesome sight; Magdalene was stood over the body of Burns, who had been dried out to a husk. He looked like an ancient mummy.

Rick twisted his gun to meet the real mummy, parts of him regenerating. Skin and muscle were growing back as he used the life of the American to grow in strength.


	11. He's not a fish, he's an undead mummy

"Oh God.” Magdalene breathed and gripped the hilt of her dagger with such tension, it was a surprise blood didn’t squeeze itself from the leather strap. “He’s…whatever the opposite of rotting is.”

There was a tremor in Rick’s hands. “We are in serious trouble.”

He fired at the mummy with both guns. Evy screamed at the noise whilst Magdalene covered her ears with her hands. Rick shot off multiple bullets but they went straight through the body of the demon as he walked towards them. He wasn’t injured by a single one. Jonathan, Henderson and Daniels rushed in as Rick still tried to shoot at the creature.

The mummy reached him and pushed him across the room with such force he was thrown up into the air and sailed back ten feet as he screamed, before crashing into the other men.

The mummy turned to Evy who tried to back away, raising her hands in front of her face. The creature leaned in closer and closer…

“Hey ugly!”

Magdalene clouted him round the head with the stool from the grand piano. His head swung around and she made an ‘ew’ noise before a discordant set of notes were played on the piano keys. The white cat from before walked across the keys and the mummy screamed with his unhinged jaw. No sooner than the cat meowed did he turn to sand and blow away like a hurricane.

Magdalene launched herself at Evy and hugged her as the others got up off the floor.

Rick stared at the windows where the mummy had disappeared. “We are in very serious trouble.”

“Finally accepted it’s a ‘we’ now, have we?” Evy pursed her lips at him.

The storm cleared itself and the plague was over. Some of the tallest buildings were in ruins and some were grieving but the damage was minimal considering it had rained fire from the sky not half an hour before. The city would repair itself, until the next plague.

Evy shepherded them all to the Museum of Antiquities, she had worked there for a few years and hoped that the curator there, Doctor Terrence Bey, would shed some light on their predicament. Magdalene thought it was a little more extreme than a predicament, but she was willing to let slide semantics considering the gravity of the situation.

All the men were trying to talk at the same time.

“He does seem to like you, Evy.”

“Yeah, what’s that about?”

“What’s this guy want?”

Evy’s voice became very commanding and befitting of the dire state of events. “There’s only one person that can possibly give us any answers.” She said confidently.

They rounded the corner into the main part of the museum to hear some very hurried shushing noises and Magdalene saw what must have been this all-knowledgeable curator stood next to the warrior with the tattoos. He was still wearing his many belts and weapons around his robes and at a good height positively dwarfed the other man.

“You!” Evy was aghast.

Every man raised their weapon and Magdalene rolled her eyes. “For Pete’s sake, what is it with the lot of you and fancy gun flashing? They ain’t accessories!”

Doctor Bey addressed the main party in clipped tones. “Miss Carnahan. Gentlemen.”

“I’m here too!” Magdalene waved her arm in the air from the back of the crowd and wriggled through. “Is it the hat? I wore it to look more masculine but I didn’t think it would work that well until I started hanging around with this lot.”

“Miss.” He nodded after a pause.

She smiled vibrantly at his acknowledgement of her.

Evy looked put out. “What is he doing here?”

“Do you really want to know, or would you prefer to just shoot us?” Doctor Bey replied.

Rick holstered his weapon. “After what I just saw…I’m willing to go on a little faith here.”

“We are a part of an ancient secret society.” Doctor Bey explained once everyone had sat down.

Jonathan stood high up in a model chariot that no doubt contained some priceless artefact and was fiddling with an Egyptian archery bow. Magdalene sat in front of him, unheeding of whether or not it was impolite to sit on the floor. She felt like none of this tragedy mattered as much around Jonathan, he was full of a sort of loose, carefree nature that put anyone at ease. Besides, there was an added bonus in that she sat very close to the exotic warrior; she had been impressed with him ever since he showed such expert skill and swordsmanship against a man with several loaded firearms and sticks of dynamite. A volatile American man at that.

If anyone, including Magdalene herself, knew just how much this impressed her, they would be in serious doubts as to her intentions. Jonathan would roll his eyes and say she was too easily distracted by shiny things like curved swords. In her defence, it was very shiny.

Doctor Bey continued. “For over three thousand years we have guarded the City of the Dead. We are sworn at manhood to do any and all in our power to stop the High Priest Imhotep from being reborn into this world.”

“And now because of you, we have failed.” The warrior said.

Magdalene looked up at him from her spot on the floor, legs spread out in front of her in her new trousers.

She scoffed. “Yes, well you didn’t explain the looming threat of evil to us very well. You just shot at us and made rather vague, empty threats to our lives. It clearly wasn’t very efficient.”

“Those threats were very real, I assure you.”

“You said you’d kill us and you haven’t.”

Quicker than a twinkling, his very shiny sword was in his hand and at her neck. She stared up at him disinterestedly.

“Bit of a moot point now, isn’t it?” She said.

He put his blade away. “I have killed many to save the Earth from this creature, you do not have to be an exception.”

Evy spoke up. “You think this justifies the killing of innocent people?”

Doctor Bey bit back at her. “To stop this creature? Let me think."

"Yes!” He and the warrior answered the rhetorical and overly sarcastic question at the same time.

“Ooo, bit sensitive.” Magdalene mocked. She rolled her eyes at the drama and went back to the book she had taken from one of the shelves in the museum library. She had spent a good ten minutes prior to their conversation asking Evy so much about the books in there. She had never seen a museum before and found it fascinating how much time people put into preserving the past.

The Egyptian looked at the book she had open on her lap and frowned. “You read upside-down?”

Magdalene laughed. “Is it the wrong way up? I can’t actually read, I just thought it would make me look smarter.”

“You can’t read?” Jonathan asked.

“You think I went to school?”

Secretly, no one was surprised that she had no formal education. She admitted freely that she had no home and had been travelling alone for a long time. She was remarkably at ease with being in a room full of intellectuals and explorers, subsequently rising higher in their opinions of her for her open nature about her lack of schooling.

The warrior felt a tug on his clothes and looked down at the young woman sat on the marble floor.

“What’s your name?” She asked.

He stared at her blankly, as did the rest of the room. Jonathan looked in between his legs, very bemused at his bird's eye view of the girl’s leather hat with her legs sticking out of it.

Magdalene elaborated defensively. “Well it’s a bit difficult to keep calling him ‘the warrior’ in my head, isn’t it? It gets a bit repetitive.”

Rick raised a finger. “Question: Why doesn’t he like cats?”

“Cats are the guardians of the underworld. He will fear them until he is full regenerated.” Doctor Bey said.

Evy was not lying when she said that he was the smartest man she knew.

The warrior continued. “And then he will fear nothing.”

Magdalene looked at the warrior. “Do you ever tell a joke?”

“Are you always this infuriating?”

“Are you always this defeatist? You, Sir, are gloomier than a wet Monday.” She retorted, waggling her dagger at him rudely.

She refused to be nice to him as he hadn’t extended the courtesy of his name, but she couldn’t help finding herself admiring his strong demeanour and sarcastic attitude. She was tempted to call him Mr. Whatshisname just to rile him further but even she wasn’t that petulant.

Daniels paced about. “Yeah, you know how he gets hisself fully regenerated?”

“By killin’ everyone who opened that chest.” Henderson finished.

“And suckin’ ‘em dry! That’s how!”

“Jonathan, will you stop playing with that?” Evy jump-scared her brother and he twanged the bow in surprise. “When I saw him alive at Hamunaptra, he called me Anck-Su-Namun. And then just now in Mr. Burns’ quarters, h-he tried to kiss me.” She became rather flustered towards the end.

The two Egyptian men gave each other a hurried look.

“It’s because of his love for Anck-Su-Namun that he was cursed.” Doctor Bey spoke lowly. “Apparently, even after three thousand years…”

“He is still in love with her.” The nameless warrior finished.

Evy kept her emotions in check. “Yes, that is very romantic, but what has it got to do with me?”

“Perhaps he will once again try to raise her from the dead.” The warrior said to the curator.

“Yes. And it appears he has already chosen his human sacrifice.” The pair looked at Evy.

“Bad luck, old mum.” Jonathan was sympathetic.

Doctor Bey stood up. “On the contrary, it may just give us the time we need to kill the creature.”

“By what, using her as bait? He’s not a fish he’s an undead mummy.” Magdalene scoffed.

The warrior looked up at the glass pane window as the sky dimmed menacingly. “We will need all the help we can get.” He spoke in his thick accent. “His powers are growing.”

Everyone stood, including Magdalene, and watched the moon eclipse the sun at a frightening pace.

“‘And he stretched forth his hand towards the heavens and there was darkness throughout the land of Egypt.’” Jonathan quoted the next passage from the book of Exodus as they were cast in shadow.


	12. Should we start a little romance?

Magdalene took off her hat and scratched her head. “It doesn’t make sense.” She whispered to herself.

“Nothing about this makes sense.” Henderson countered.

She hummed at him in response and sat back down, resting her cheek on her fist. She held her dagger by the end of the handle and watch the blade drop like a pendulum, flicking it up and watching it drop again in a repetitive cycle as she thought.

Evy bit her lip and sat by her, determined to comfort the girl who had slowly shrank away from everyone else over the course of the day. No doubt she felt isolated as the youngest there.

“What doesn’t make sense to you?” She asked.

Magdalene shrugged. “They aren’t in order.”

“What aren’t in order?” Rick frowned.

“The plagues. We’ve had locusts, water turned to blood, hail and fire from the sky, now darkness across all of Egypt. They’re all out of order, darkness is the ninth plague.” She looked at the others. “Also, why the Plagues of Egypt? The High Priest of a completely different religion brings with him the plagues brought by the God of the Hebrews? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“The Egyptians feared the Plagues completely.” The warrior responded. “You think they care whose God they came from?”

“I have a better question.” Rick pointed at her. “You said you can’t read, how do you know so much about the Bible?”

“I was never taught to read or write, but the priest I lived with insisted on reading the Bible to us every night and made us go to Church every Sunday.”

“Why did you live with a priest?” Jonathan made a face, the horrors of stringent members of the clergy were not unknown to him.

She grinned, the twinkle back in her eye and her laid-back body language returned. “My father had an affair and the lucky lady got pregnant. Soon as I was born I was carted off to a country priest back in England, right up north he was, far away from any bombings once the Great War started. I worked as a labourer underneath the gardener until I ran off. It was the priest who named me Magdalene, after Mary Magdalene. Said it was to try and put some Godliness in me.”

No one really knew what to say after that, Evy put an arm around her and squeezed her tight in a hug.

“Is that why you asked us to call you Maddie?” Jonathan asked.

“Oh God no, I just think Magdalene sounds like an old lady.” She replied.

Rick, an orphan himself, clapped her on the shoulder. Like her, he didn’t care about being parentless and knew how difficult it was to make other people understand that it didn’t matter in the slightest where he came from, just who he was.

Henderson and Daniels began a heated debate vis-à-vis not becoming mummy food, to which everyone else had an opinion. A plan to thwart the creature was started, falling short at the first hurdle; how do you kill something that cannot be killed?

Magdalene took the book she had previously been pretending to read, planning on returning it. She struggled to heave back the row of books that had flopped over into the gap where their neighbour had previously been, the skinniest of which was still at least double the width of her wrist. The warrior walked over and put a hand on the leaning books. Magdalene whipped out her dagger and prodded his chest with it.

“You can remove your blade.” He said and pulled the books upright one-handed.

With a nod of his head he gestured to the now empty space for her to put the book in. She did so and stuck her dagger back in her belt.

“You gonna give me your name then or is it in your Secret Society code to keep your identity hidden, just in case you have to depend on an extra layer of mystery for intimidation purposes?” She twinkled at him.

“My name is Ardeth Bay.”

Having gotten some information from him, Magdalene smiled so widely he stepped back in slight shock.

“Pleasure to meet you, Sir.”

“Ardeth Bay is fine.”

He managed to articulate a response in the face of such uncanny cheerfulness, he wasn’t used to people attempting to befriend him. Everyone in the Medjai knew and respected him already as a leader and fierce combatant, others he intimidated to the point where they ran for the dunes, as was his duty to do so.

Magdalene offered her hand to shake, pumping his hand with an enthusiasm that would have wrenched the arm of anyone who did not possess the strength of an obvious soldier. Letting go, she took off her hat, it felt proper. By off, she took it right off, allowing for one of the rare occasions where it was not even slung round her neck on its cord.

She hummed to herself for a moment before taking a breath. “Why do you ride horses? Why not camels, they need less water?”

“You can trust a horse. A camel will walk and walk for miles and then drop dead. A horse will let you know as he tires.” Ardeth said, resting his hand on the hilt of his weapon.

“Can I ask…what sort of sword is that? You use it very well.”

He smiled. “It is a scimitar. Thank you, I have trained since birth to lead my people.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Doesn’t sound like that leaves much room for fun.”

“You seem to prioritise fun over many things Miss Magdalene.”

“Maddie.” She corrected, her mouth in a definite line.

A commotion came from the front of the building that stirred the others from their rousing debate and a small individual barrelled into Magdalene, knocking her backwards.

Ardeth caught her underneath her shoulders and up righted both her and the human cannon still entangled in her oversized shirt. It was yelling and kicking like a being possessed, blinded by panic.

Magdalene prized it from her clothes and held it by the shoulders. It was Hamed, probably so afraid of the sudden darkness he had ran into the first building he could. Although what he was doing in Cairo, Magdalene had no idea. His eyes were closed and he was screaming in his native language, incoherent and very piercing.

“Hamed! Hamed!” She called. “Calm down, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

He could not hear her over his own voice and his fists thrashing around. She managed to dodge those but a sudden jerk of the knee she did not anticipate, striking her in the centre of her chest.

“Hamed! Ham-oof!”

The wind was knocked out of her as the little boy opened his eyes and saw her pained face.

“Maddie!” He cried out and slung his arms around her neck.

She spluttered a bit, still breathless from the blow to her ribs. “He-y. Hey buddy, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”

Ardeth knelt beside her and took hold of the boy’s shoulder, murmuring softly to him. “How do you know this boy?” He inquired, giving Magdalene a look of suspicion.

“What? Because I am a foreigner you don’t trust me? I cannot make friends?”

Her sharp tone raised a whimper from Hamed and he sank deeper into the strangle-hold he had on her neck. She mumbled over and over to pacify him, something Ardeth’s sharp eyes and ears noticed immediately. She calmed down the child’s hysteria with easy, soothing, incoherent sounds and a measured hand that communicated love, warmth and safety.

Once Hamed was ready to let go, she sat on her haunches and smiled at him, speaking to Ardeth. “I met him in the town before we travelled to Hamunaptra.”

He asked Hamed a question in, Hamed seemed to take offence and returned a cross response.

“He says you gave him food from the market place and a gift of happiness.” Ardeth looked at her with curiosity in his features. “I do not understand.”

“I didn’t really give him food.” She giggled at him and whispered conspiratorially. “We stole it together didn’t we, you and me? We felt like lunch.”

Hamed said something else to Ardeth and pulled his sleeve in the direction of Magdalene, wanting him to translate.

“He says you helped him before and…you have come to protect him again. What this gift of happiness he talks about?”

“Well ask him.” Magdalene said.

After Ardeth posed his question, Hamed took the rubber ball out of his pocket, just small enough for him to make a fist around and held it out at arm’s length to the warrior. Whilst Ardeth prompted him to recount his story of meeting Magdalene, she returned her hat to her head and walked over to the others.

“How do we keep him safe while we’re fighting Imhotep?” She asked.

“You’re not bringing the child along! We are not a babysitting service. As much as you might think this whole nightmare is some sort of game, we have a serious job to do.” The curator spoke with an air of pompous superciliousness.

“Well we can’t leave him here! I’m not saying we should take him, but we have to find somewhere for him to stay first. He’s frightened to death. He has no parents, no family and no friends.” Magdalene seethed. “He’s my goddamn responsibility.”

“No, he’s not Maddie.” Evy tried to reason with her. “He’s just a boy you met on the street, there are dozens of them. We need to leave him here and fight that creature.”

Suddenly she understood Imhotep’s rage and desperation in resurrecting Anck-Su-Namun, keeping her protected even after a few millennia under the dirt.

“I don’t give a crap if he’s one of thousands!”

Everyone stared at her, taken aback by the scary intensity of her anger. No one expected such fury from such a childish person. Hamed had paused in his story, one hand on Ardeth’s bandolier with his mouth open in shock. Evy’s shoulders sagged and she looked away.

Rick looked Magdalene in the eye. “Maddie, he’s right. We can’t take a child with us, who knows what would happen to him. He could be killed.”

“Not without making sure he’s safe first.” She was obstinate. “He needs someone to help him.”

“We can’t save every child that runs through the doors.”

She slapped him. “Just because you cannot help every man out there doesn’t mean you let the whole world rot in hell.”

Ardeth walked over and gripped her shoulder tightly. It looked to be a warning gesture by the tightening of Magdalene’s jaw but she calmed down the moment he touched her and leant ever so slightly closer towards him for comfort.

“They are right. It would be a greater risk to his life if we delay facing the creature.” He spoke softly. “He will be safer if he stays here.”

“What about the plagues?” She pleaded, her resolution weakening.

Jonathan joined in, sensing that if they pressed her she would see reason. “Maddie, don’t worry about him. We’re going to fight the creature,  
save the day and the little scamp can run about stealing food from as many people as he likes.”

He gave her a hug as he saw the tears that quivered in the corners of her eyes. There was a sort of sibling bond beginning between the two of them. What with Magdalene’s lack of parentage and Jonathan’s open demeanour, she relied on him for an emotion bolster when she felt drained.

She looked at Hamed who, once Ardeth had joined the group of people, stood close to her leg. “He expects me to protect him.”

“By leaving him here you are protecting him.” Ardeth insisted. “You cannot take him to the fort, Imhotep will return there for certain.”

“What’s the ankle-biter doing in Cairo anyway?” Jonathan asked.

Through Ardeth’s translation, Hamed said, “I saw a great cloud of locusts rise up from the sand outside of the village. Most people hid in their homes but I had no home to hide in so I stole a camel and came to Cairo. The city can keep me safe.”

Evy took the little boy’s hand and squeezed it. “Magdalene, our friend here is right. Hamed can’t come with us. I know you feel strongly about him, he’s like you, but you need to forget your emotions right now. Who knows how long we have before the mummy comes back? We need to be prepared.”

“Maddie?” Hamed opened up his arms, seeking comfort as the wind blew a gale outside.

She picked him up by his waist and held him in a tight hug. “I know Miss Evy.”

In a rare display of compassion, Ardeth decided to extend a hand of friendship not force. “I shall take two of my men and they shall bring him to their tribe. He will be safe there. Once the creature is destroyed he may choose whether to stay and train as Medjai or follow a different path.”

He was touched by the way Magdalene insisted on caring for a fellow traveller, he felt it only right to help comfort both her and the child. Not that she was much more than a child herself. In all honesty, he was more impressed by her erratic personality and lively behaviour. He wanted to see more of it, not understanding how one could be so jovial and childish in such uncertain times. It was a puzzle.

She set her mocha-brown eyes on his deep mahogany ones and silently communicated her appreciation. There was a vivacity restored in them that she had lost when she realised she could not protect every wandering soul she came across.

Ardeth explained to Hamed what was happening, he seemed to accept this exceedingly willingly with only a few hugs with Magdalene before Ardeth took him away. Magdalene hugged Ardeth in thanks, smiling all the time at Hamed, who was much more comfortable leaving with the weapon-laden stranger once he blushed at the physical contact. They heard his chirpy giggles down the corridor.


	13. Civilised discourse

By the time they returned to the fort, Magdalene had returned to her old self. By which she made constant sarcastic remarks, grinned at everyone else’s inconveniences and found rather odd places to sit in. She was cross-legged on the table when they got back to Evy’s room.

“We must stop him from regenerating.” Evy put herself in charge of battle plans. “Who opened that chest?”

“There was me and Daniels here.” Henderson answered. “Oh, and Burns, of course.”

“And that Egyptologist fella.” Daniels added.

Magdalene sat straighter. “The one with the funny hat?” She stopped talking at Evy’s disapproving look.

Rick turned in from looking at the eclipsed sun. “What about my buddy Beni?”

“No, he scrammed outta there ‘fore we opened the thing.”

“Yeah, he was the smart one.” Henderson toyed with his chewing tobacco, vulgar as it was.

“Well, that sounds like Beni.” Rick was not surprised.

“We must find the Egyptologist and bring him back to the safety of the fort before the creature can get to him.” Evy said.

“Right.” Rick pointed. “She stays here. You three, come with me. Maddie you’re staying too.”

There was a cacophony of noise as there were objections from all sides, Evy the most offended.

“You can’t leave me behind like some old carpetbag!”

Rick stopped in his tracks and turned around making a face.

“I mean, who put you in charge?” She demanded.

No sooner did she walk over to argue with him, he picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and used her as a battering ram for the doors to the bedroom.

“O’Connell!” She shrilled. “What do you think you are doing? Jonathan! O’Connell!”

“Sorry, but he’s a bit…tall.” Came his lame excuse.

Magdalene chortled, she even snorted with laughter, as Rick threw Evy on the bed and marched out.

“Coward that you are!” She raced after him but he shut the doors and locked them before she made it to the opening. She sounded upset now. “O’Connell, you are not leaving me in here. Jonathan, if you don’t open this door in one minute flat! O’Connell, let me out of here!”

Rick grabbed Daniels by his lapels. “This door doesn’t open.” His voice was clear, precise, level and deadly. “She doesn’t come out, and no one goes in, right?”

“Right.” Daniels agreed promptly.

“Right?”

“Right.” Henderson did the same.

Rick dropped the key to the door in Daniels’ hand.

“Maddie is staying here too…right?” Rick addressed her, she was fiddling with some papers on the table.

“Do I have to?” She pouted.

Magdalene was not the type to pout to persuade the opposite sex, she didn’t know how. Having been on her own from so young an age she had no girlfriends to grow up and giggle with over silly flirtation tactics. Being as that was, whilst pouting did not make her ugly, it most definitely did not make her attractive.

Rick picked up her hat from the cabinet and threw it at her. “The first time I saw you fight, you nearly got stabbed by a man with a hook. Then you tried head butting a load of women in the market and bit one of them. Then you wandered around in the middle of the night dragging unconscious men around. Then you fired at that creature when it was right in front of you and missed twice. You haven’t the best track record.”

She nodded. “Can I at least practise with the revolver again?”

“No.”

Rick walked out again. “Let’s go, Jonathan.”

“Oh, I thought I could just stay at the fort and, uh, reconnoitre.”

“Now!”

“Yeah, right.” He turned to the others and gestured with his hip flask. “We’re just gonna rescue the Egyptologist.”

“Good luck!” Magdalene waved with a cheery grin.

It didn’t take very long for the two Americans to get bored quickly. Magdalene was used to waiting, her life was spent waiting. Travelling place to place, waiting was just what was done. You waited to travel, you waited as you travelled. In the distance she heard buzzing, like wings, and stuck her head out of the window.

“The next plague. Flies.” She told the others and nibbled on her chapped bottom lip. “I hope they’re okay.”

“To hell with this.” Daniels said, stood next to her at the window. “I’m goin’ downstairs, get me a drink.”

“I wouldn’t.” Magdalene lolled, resting on her elbows, leaning back on the window sill.

He sneered. “Shut up.”

She shrugged and went to sit on the floor in the corner of the room, half covered by the shadows and wedged between a desk and the wall.

“You want somethin’?” Daniels asked Henderson.

“Yeah…yeah, get me a glass of bourbon.”

“All right.”

“A-and a shot of bourbon. And a bourbon chaser!”

“I’ll get your damn bourbon!” Daniels’ disembodied shout came from the hallway.

Henderson, forgetting about the girl curled up in an almost invisible ball, practised drawing his handguns on his quarter of the four canopic jars. He clearly needed a confidence boost, but this was more bravado to mask his fear.

A wind came through the open window and he shot two feet in the air out of fright, pointing his gun at the air. The breeze sounded like a whisper in a foreign language. He shuffled to the window, his useless gun his protection. Magdalene took her dagger out but remained where she was, eyes narrowed and lips set in a dour line of fortitude.

Henderson’s gun juddered in his hand. Who wouldn’t be afraid of death meeting you before your time? He saw nothing and his arm lowered.  
A blast of sand and the scream of the devil rushed through the open window, knocking him on his back. Magdalene bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood to stop herself from crying out as she watched the repugnant spectacle.

Henderson’s body was lifted into the air and shredded, absorbed, sucked dry. It didn’t matter what happened. Magdalene didn’t really register it. He was dead and that was that.

His corpse was thrown away and the sand congregated to form a man. Imhotep.

At this, Magdalene bit down even harder to stop her gasp. He stood, back to her, in tattered robes, silent as the grave. She couldn’t see his face, but she saw enough to adjust her grip on her dagger and jab him in the back with it.

* * *

He felt power. He felt control. He felt life again. He felt a sharp knife sticking into the small of his back.

“You might not die but it’s hard to kill someone with your torso and your legs on different sides of the room.”

It was a subtle hiss in a foreign tongue. Female. Unafraid. That got his attention more than the knife did. He was caught, for a moment, between reaching the sacrifice for his beloved or staying here and discerning why the pest was not afraid.

“I want to know something.” It was saying, Imhotep translated the language in his head. “I had a dream, about you. I did not expect it to be you but it is you and I couldn’t have dreamt about you because I ain’t ever seen you before which means I dreamt up something that was going to happen. Now what the hell have you done to my head?”

Imhotep turned, to see a tall, long-limbed and gangly adolescent in front of him, wielding a small, ineffectual dagger like it was a three-foot long sword. She cringed as she saw the gaping hole in the lower part of his face. It was the same child who had been reduced to tears in his presence in the catacombs of Hamunaptra, it had finally found some vestige of courage inside to make up for the pathetic display. He tilted his head with inquisitiveness, this girl was not stupid, there was an obvious fear in her. But she was ignoring her fear…drowning it even with a curiosity of her own.

His appraisal of her was altered slightly as she stepped closer to him, mapping out his face as she made her own judgements. In that tiny moment, he forgot about Anck-Su-Namun, forgot about the Egypt of his own time, forgot his hatred of the world and thought only of the spark of excitement in her eyes.

He spoke to her in Ancient Egyptian, his power letting her hear his words in her own language. “Dreams are powerful, do not waste them.”

She blinked and furrowed her brow in confusion.

“Now you stop that. Just because you got some supernatural hokum up your sleeves don’t mean you got to mess me around like that.” She had an interesting way of speaking.

“You are not afraid?”

“You just turned a man into a skeleton, ‘course I am. But I want answers and you have them, thought asking you would be easier.” The excitement was waning and she was looking ever more nervous, biting at her bottom lip.

Imhotep saw no harm in explaining the gift that had been transferred to her when he was resurrected. “You dreamt of the future, you have been touched by the Gods through the Book of the Dead.”

Her nose wrinkled up like she smelt something nasty, she reminded Imhotep of an overly friendly pet. “I don’t want anyone touching me.” Then she snorted at her own joke.

Imhotep took a step forward and watched her take several back, he was only a few inches taller than her but he loomed easily as she shrank into her clothes.

“You have a lot of people afraid of you.” She said

“It is good that they are afraid. I will destroy them.”

The pest bit at her lip and stared at him. “I am not afraid. Not anymore.”

His eyes narrowed, she was trying to test him. She was playing with fire. “Why?”

“I’m not dead.”

He lifted the glimmer of a smirk, it was refreshing to talk to someone after all these years of nothing and this girl had more common sense than most of the desperate humans he had so far come across. “I will not kill someone who has been given a gift by the Gods. You are precious to this earth and I will respect that.”

“Uh, thank you. That’s very nice of you.” The girl blinked and stood up straight, caught off-guard by his promise. “Can I ask you not to kill my friends too?”

“No.”

“Worth a shot, I guess.” She said.

Imhotep almost laughed, very almost. Watching her expressions and shifting moods was like drinking water after a day in the desert. This, to any ordinary man would be beyond exciting, this…dream that became reality, a woman with a vision of the future who also seemed to be able to see his soul. To any average reincarnated High Priest, nay God, this would be interesting to say the least. But Imhotep’s attention had waned and the lull in conversation allowed his mind to return to the desert flower he was driven to resurrect.

Imhotep craved his love and nothing could fill any space in his mind save being reunited with Anck-Su-Namun.

He had given the pest her due time.


	14. Out of the frying pan

Magdalene was thrown across the room and thumped back into the wall. Pinned, immobilized, trapped. She was going absolutely nowhere. She couldn’t open her mouth to make sound, just watching as the three millennia old High Priest of Osiris turned to sand and leak through the key hole to Evy’s bedroom. A sweat broke out on her skin as she fought against his magic but remained three feet off the ground. Silent and, at last, petrified. In both senses of the word.

Rick and Jonathan sprinted in, staring at Magdalene who, with great exertion, jerked her head at the door to the bedroom. Incensed at the thought of the mummy in there with Evy, Rick stormed the door, kicking it instead of unlocking it.

“Hey! Get your ugly face off of her!” He shouted.

From her position on the wall she couldn’t see Evy or the mummy but heard Evy’s startled gasp as she woke up. There was a primordial growl followed by Ancient Egyptian that sounded more threatening than anything in the English language.

Rick took out his secret mummy deterrent. “Look what I got.”

The cat hissed in Rick’s hands, Imhotep fled in a flurry of sand, Magdalene fell face down on the floor.

“Ow.” She complained, nose and mouth smushed to the tiles.

The tense atmosphere receded and sighs of relief were heard. Everyone was remarkably calm.

“Can someone pick me up?” Magdalene called, voice very much still muffled. “Apparently, being pinned to a wall by some undead mummy stops your muscles working.”

“You alright?” Rick asked Evy.

“Well, I’m not sure.” Jonathan was such a girl. Even Magdalene managed to give him a look, angled on the floor as she was and hat covering one of her eyes.

Once they’d managed to right her, Rick picked her up like a doll and sat her down on the bed where she stroked the cat once she had regained semi-control of her motor skills. The was not happy at being used as a lap-pet and complained as such. This seemed to resonate with Magdalene who was perhaps a little more shaken up than she let on. She became quite fond of the cat she named ‘Jonathan’ as a cruel jibe. She said they both grumbled more than anyone else she knew.

They later decided that, with only one cursed member of the four still alive, it was best to go back to the museum. Jonathan even had a car. Magdalene had never ridden in a car before.

“Oh, look, it’s a car.” She said whilst grinning.

No one else was that impressed with the car.

Nevertheless, there was a general air of excitement as they rode through empty streets in darkness. Magdalene enjoyed lapping up recollections of the adventure so far. There was something dark happening in Egypt and she wasn’t going to miss a moment.

Everyone else was excited because Evy had a theory. Theories were good, and a lot more to go on than they had originally been working with. Ardeth was still there with Doctor Bey. Hamed was not. Magdalene was glad he was safe.

“I owe you thanks, Mr Bay.” Magdalene stuck her hand out for him to shake. “You’ve done right by Hamed.”

“As did you.” Ardeth gave her a courteous nod of the head and shook hands with her.

“Must be nice, getting to fight of invaders all the time. Think you’d have any use for a woman? I could distract them with my feminine charms while you sneak up behind them.”

Ardeth made a startled expression and tried to find the polite words to say no to such an upfront and ridiculous suggestion. Magdalene winked at him and laughed herself silly, bumping his shoulder. She trailed off as they reached the bottom of the staircase.

“How many bloody stairs do you need?”

“Are you sure you know what you are doing?” Jonathan asked his sister.

“Yes, well according to legend the book that the Americans found at Hamunaptra is supposed to bring people back from the dead.” Evy carried on, her speech spurred by a surge of energy now they had a tangible method to kill Imhotep. She was still in her nightgown. “Until now it was a notion I was unwilling to believe.”

“Believe it sister. That’s what brought our buddy back to life.” Rick said in his own dramatized American way.

“His name is Imhotep.” Magdalene’s head bobbled, running up the stairs behind everyone else, her legs still weren’t working properly from being immobilised by Imhotep. Occasionally they decided to stop working. Occasionally they worked sideways, even backwards. She held her hat on her head with one hand as she bobbled up.

She was given several looks ranging from bemused to scathing. Jonathan’s was bemused. Ardeth’s was scathing.

“Well it is. No point naming someone if you then don’t use their name.” She huffed, breathless.

“I’m thinking that if the black book can bring dead people to life-”

Rick finished Evy’s sentence. “Then maybe the gold book can kill him.”

“That’s the myth.” Evy said.

“The gold one you lot managed to not find on the dig you started specifically so you could find it?”

“Stop talking Maddie.” Rick said.

Magdalene’s jaw dropped in silent protest, insulted. They reached the top of the stairs and found what Evy was looking for.

“Now we just have to find out where the gold book is hidden.” She said.

A low murmur filtered in from outside that captured their attention, it did not sound good. Subconsciously Magdalene slipped behind Ardeth as they all walked over to see what was happening. It could have been a wish to avoid being caught in the crossfire of the many weapons he and Rick carried if they had to fight what was outside. It could have been self-preservation to let other people face whatever evil lurked there first. It was probably the fact that she knew Ardeth gave as good as he took and she felt safe with him around. He did seem to be in charge of a lot of men with semi-automatic machine guns.

A great army of men with torches was bearing down with an oddly slow but no less sinister pace upon the museum. There were hordes, thousands of them, every man from Cairo must be there…and out of their minds.

“Imhotep. Imhotep.” They intoned listlessly.

Magdalene, eventually brave enough to go to the window and look, swore blind that they were walking…blindly. They didn’t even blink. She saw their skin and swallowed disgustingly.

Jonathan wrinkled his nose. “Last but not least, my favourite plague…boils and sores.”

“They have become his slaves. So it has begun, the beginning of the end.” Ardeth said.

Magdalene looked him in the face. “Again, lighten up. Anyone would think we faced certain death on a daily basis with you around.”

It seemed Magdalene was beginning to rub off on Ardeth, he softened up and even smiled at her when she joked.

“Not quite yet, we don’t. Come on.” Evy was stylishly pulling off power and authority in a nightgown much more successfully than she had done the night the river boat was attacked and she was half drowned. It was true that practise made perfect.


	15. And into the fire

This was the part where they found what Evy had pulled them all there to read. Actually, look at. It was written in pictures, hieroglyphs, and Magdalene was still wrapping her head around the fact that a language could be called ‘dead’ but Evy could still read it. Whilst Rick forced himself to stay still instead of going out and fighting and Daniels, Jonathan and Doctor Bey were unhelpfully lingering over Evy’s shoulder, Ardeth stayed close to Magdalene. The sight of the men had made her sick to the stomach and he had put a comforting arm around her.

“You must steel yourself.” He said forcefully. “We are going to face worse than this before the creature can be defeated.”

“Imhotep.” Magdalene corrected, but only upon reflex as she mumbled, staring into space dumbly. “…Thank you.” She added at the very end.

“According to Bembridge scholars, the golden Book of Amun-Rah is located inside the statue of Anubis.” Evy was charging ahead with her translation.

“That’s where we found the black book.” Daniels was not being helpful.

“Exactly.” She was beginning to sound a little smug.

Jonathan made a more useful statement. “Looks like the old boys at Bembridge were mistaken.”

Evy was reading and talking at the same time. “Yes, they mixed the books up. Mixed up where they were buried, so if the black book is inside the statue of Anubis then the golden book must be inside…”

The plague victims breached the door and ran in their droves. Well at least they’d still the cognitive capacity to accelerate, otherwise this would have been no fun. Everyone moved over to look, Magdalene lent too far and had to grab Ardeth’s sleeve to stop herself falling on the upraised swords, knives and other assorted shiny, pointy accessories.

Jonathan was getting tense. “Come on Evy, faster.”

“Patience is a virtue.” She sang.

“Not right now it isn’t.” Ricks jolly tone of voice under intense pressure of life-threatening situations was a marvel, it really was.

“Uh, I think I’ll go and get the car started.” Jonathan ran off.

“Well he’s helpful in a crisis.” Magdalene muttered to Ardeth.

Evy’s translations were over. “I’ve got it. The golden Book of Amun-Ra is at Hamunaptra inside the statue of Horus. Take that Bembridge scholars.”

Magdalene grabbed her by the shoulders. “Hurrah. Celebrate later. Run now.”

Daniels, the one with the most on the line, ran the fastest. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! Get this thing in gear, boy. Let’s get outta here.”

As they reached the car, that weedy, odious little man came running out of the museum. With a last encouragement for Evy to get into the car they raced away from the twit who was calling for the lord of the undead.

A silhouette appeared in the window that roared and screamed like no thing on earth. Obeying the scream, which apparently communicated meaning, the slaves came rushing towards them.

“You’re gonna get yours Beni! You hear me?” Rick unleashed his anger as they drove away. “You’re gonna get yours!”

“Oh, like I’ve never heard that before!” He taunted.

They ‘burned rubber’ as Magdalene put it, before burning the breaks as Jonathan stopped in front of a crowd of unmoving men, boils and all. They stared. Rick was not happy about the lack of movement and stomped his foot on the accelerator. Apparently, they were going to be their own battering ram. Splendid. Magdalene had been getting bored.

“Hang on!” Rick screamed and the bodies of men began tumbling over the bonnet.

It was chaos. It was terrifying. It was claustrophobic. Everyone was working on adrenaline and autonomy. It was fight in the moment and keep fighting because everything was on the line and if you didn’t believe you were invincible you were definitely going to find out what happened to people who weren’t invincible.

Everyone pitched in, Evy poked one of them in the eye and Rick gave him a haymaker that would knock anyone for six and then some. Daniels and Doctor Bey were also slogging away admirably, but Ardeth stole the show. Even if Magdalene was the only one who cared to notice such things with several hundred slaves to an undead Ancient Egyptian trying to tear her head off.

Men were flying from all directions at Ardeth, promptly flying back out in another direction to crash into whatever wall, wooden structure or other men were closest by. He punched one of them square in the face and watched as his prone body became an obstacle that tripped up those that had fallen behind the car and were running to catch up.

“Mr Bay, I’m beginning to think you’re the right sorta person to be around once you’re trying to kill someone other than us.”

“I’m beginning to think you’re very strange.” He replied, not even his voice betrayed the fact he was under intense physical duress, whilst Magdalene was panting as if she had sprinted a mile.

A hand pulled her backwards and she was left dangling upside-down over the side of the car, she let out an “Oh!” of surprise as a boil-covered face gnashed its teeth at her.

“D’you mind, Sir? I’m trying to have a conversation!” She scolded.

Ardeth gasped, not that he would admit to it, he lunged for the zombie and threw him, actually threw him, over the width of the car and onto the street. Magdalene did not see this, all she saw was Ardeth’s arms grab hold of her assailant and then heard said assailant crash into something very heavy on the other side of the road. She was also seeing everything upside down. That made things difficult.

She let out another little cry as someone grabbed her arms and pulled her both upright and back into the car. She looked at Ardeth and, trying to save some dignity, (as those who are English always do, it is in their blood) righted her hat back on her head.

“Much obliged Mr Bay. Are you always this helpful?”

“I try.” He punched another zombie.

“Marvellous.” She said, imitating Evy’s ladylike tone.

“Thank you.”

“You always this polite too?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Good on you. I also quite like the fighting skills, did you train very hard?”

“Obviously. Are you going to ask any more questions?”

Magdalene grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down as one of the invading hoard thrust a nasty looking machete forward. She bit down on his hand (fortunately free of boils) and head butted him off the car. She let go of Ardeth and stared him in the eye.

“Are you single?”

He laughed, his whole face lighting up in delight as he carried on throwing punches.

Everyone else was half oblivious to the whole conversation. Rick in particular was more focused on the task at hand, punching man after brainwashed man, throwing them off the car with a strength that showed just how much of a soldier he was. It had mostly been gun slinging and American stereotypes up until now, but he really was a man of the battle field. Jonathan was a humorous contrast, unable to see the road over the pile of bodies up against the windshield. He made several noises of fright and annoyance until Rick came to his aid. Two bodies were…erm, bodily…thrown off and crashed into a wooden stall, spices and powders exploding everywhere.

“They were probably very expensive you know.” Magdalene said.

“Like I care!” Rick yelled backwards over the din.

Throughout the chaos of the ramshackle attack, there must have been some understanding of a plan, however incoherent the understanding of any of these men had become. Two of them grabbed Daniels and tore him from the backseat of the car.

“Hey! O’Connell! O’Connell!”

No one could save him, they were all encumbered with the multiple bodies hanging off them. He fell off the car and they lost him in the crowd. That was not good. Derailed by the men and the panic that settled into Jonathan’s driving after they lost Daniels, they crashed into a water fountain.

“Okay! Go, go, back! Back!” Rick took charge and helped Evy out. Everyone else had to climb out themselves. He picked up a fallen torch and waved it at the hoard to keep them at bay.

“Imhotep. Imhotep.”

Magdalene sighed. “This is going to give me another headache once my head’s got time to tell itself it should be aching.”

The crowd split and He walked through.

Doctor Bey raised his chin up, ever the superior. “It’s the creature. He’s fully regenerated.”

For the first time, they could see his whole face in the flickering light of the torches. Magdalene stumbled forward in shock.

“Damn you’re an attractive bastard.” She said before she had control over her tongue.

He gave her a curious look, a look of recognition and acknowledgement. A look of mild familiarity that he followed up with a smile, reassurance of his promise. He walked with a confident gait possessed by those who knew they possessed everything else.

“Keetah mi Pharos aja nilo, isirian.”

Beni translated. “Come with me, my princess. It is time to make you mine forever.”

“‘For all eternity’, idiot.” Evy gave him a withering look that he shrank under.

Magdalene mentally cheered; Go Miss Evy.

“Koontash dai nai…aja nilo.” He said.

“Take my hand and I will spare your friends.”

Evy’s confidence waned. “Oh dear. Have you got any bright ideas?” She addressed Rick, looking around for a plan.

Rick twisted the torch nervously in his fingers. “I’m thinkin’, I’m thinkin’.”

He was thinking under the intense, brooding gaze of Imhotep. Magdalene was positive that Imhotep was the brooding sort, smouldering sort even. Very theatrical. It suited him.

Evy locked her eyes on Rick. “You better think of something fast, because if he turns me into a mummy you’re the first one I’m coming after.”

Magdalene grabbed Evy tightly by the arm. “Miss Evy so help me God if you dare I will end you and him.”

Evy walked away anyway.

“No.” Rick pulled his gun, tears in his eyes.

“Don’t.” Evy said from in the clutches of the newly regenerated man, attractive but no less evil.

Ardeth grabbed the gun. “No.”

“He still has to take me to Hamunaptra to perform the ritual.” Evy said.

“She is right.” Ardeth insisted. “Live today, fight tomorrow.”

“That one of your philosophies, is it?” Magdalene asked, scuffing her shoe on the ground trying to hide her own tears from them and Imhotep.

Rick swallowed his pride, lowered his gun and took one last tearful look at Evy. “I’ll be seeing you again.”

He pointed the torch at Imhotep, enunciating every word. Imhotep smiled venomously.

“Evelyn!” Rick said through gritted teeth as Ardeth held him back.

Beni tussled with Jonathan and took the key from him.

“Hey, that’s mine.” He said.

“Thank you.”

That little worm. Magdalene wanted to crush him.

Imhotep called out something Egyptian, something not good. Evy began yelling, fighting to free herself. Beni made an immature parting goodbye and fled after his master, weak-brained toad spawn that he was. Magdalene kicked him in the shin.

“Come here you little-” Rick started after Beni but was stopped by the chanting crowed that began closing ranks on them. Not too soon did he get an idea, throwing away his torch and lifting the manhole cover in front of them, grunting with the effort.

“Come on!” He held his arms out for Jonathan.

In a rare display of courage and unwillingness to run as fast as his legs would move from whatever was out to get him, Jonathan stopped.

“What about my sister?”

Rick had never been more sure of himself in his life. “We’re gonna get her back. Go!”

He practically threw Jonathan underground and made for Doctor Bey who marched smartly towards the enemy, drawing a sword no one knew he had on him. It had been hidden by the copious robes he wore. Rick didn’t have time for this.

“You’re next.” He grabbed Ardeth by the front of his clothes and thrust him down after Jonathan. Magdalene was picked up by her waist unexpectedly and sent down like an envelope pushed through a post box.

The curator began slicing at the Egyptian citizens, they were not immortal. Unlike Imhotep who now very much was.

“Come on! Give me your hand!” Rick yelled for Doctor Bey but he was slashing wildly against the press of bodies. There were so many of them it didn’t matter that they were easy to kill. It was just impossible to kill them all, penned in as they were.

“Go!” Doctor Bey screamed, it was more of a gargle really.

Rick pleaded with him once more but was forced to dive through the manhole cover and leave him behind. He looked at the three others down already down there, stood in near pitch-black waiting for two men to drop in from above. No one wanted to think about what happened to the one man who didn’t.

They walked about half a mile underneath the city in complete silence. Magdalene kept her head down, contemplating things. Imhotep was hell bent on resurrecting his love, that she could understand. But why the desire to raze the earth to the ground?

As far as she could tell it was the Hom-Dai curse they had put on him that drove him to global destruction, although she was pretty convinced that the High Priest did not mind crushing everything in sight. She would do the same if she’d been trapped in limbo for three thousand years, it would turn anybody evil. She had spent eighteen years on this earth and until she started this whole adventure she would have been relatively disinterest in the future of civilisation.

Suppose now I’ve got friends and a future to be invested in, she mused.

“We should resurface.” Ardeth insisted. “We need to know where we are.”

Jonathan looked back at Rick and shrugged. “There really isn’t much point in us wandering the sewage-ways in the dark all night.”

Magdalene took her hat off and rubbed at her head, as predicted she was getting another headache.

“Sounds good to me.” She said.

Ardeth lifted a manhole cover up by a few inches and Rick stuck his nose out, pistols ready to fire. He climbed out slowly in an empty plaza.

“Okay. Clear.” He holstered the guns and helped Ardeth out. Jonathan scrambled after him and Rick heaved him up by his arms. “Maddie, come on.”

“Yes alright.” The girl hissed from the underground tunnel.

A pale hand appeared on the surface, followed by another, subsequently followed by a hat attached to a smiling face. Magdalene’s smile turned into a silent look of shock as her foot slipped and she fell back down into the tunnel.

Ardeth managed to grab her hand before she disappeared the entire eight feet back into the sewers and hauled her upwards, like he was pulling a rope not her arm. Head and shoulders back above ground, Magdalene threw her other arm onto the pavement.

“It’s a bit slippery down there.”

She nearly went down again, squealing. Rick was getting impatient and irritable.

“Can you be a little louder? I’m not sure those zombified freaks can hear us.”

Ardeth and Jonathan helped her out with little more noise than a few scuffles.

“Thank you.” She mouthed, not wanting to upset Rick any further.

Ardeth picked her hat up off the floor and handed it to her, a cordial smile on his face. They looked around, furtively in case company arrived. They were back in the fort plaza. Rick suddenly put his arms out and pushed everyone away from the entrance to the fort and into shadows, it was full of ‘those zombified freaks’.

“We need to get in there.” Rick said.

Magdalene blinked. “We need to what now?”

“I need my bag of tricks. Otherwise we won’t be able to get close enough to the gold book to grab it and kill that sucker before Evelyn becomes mummy food.”

Jonathan was appropriately concerned. “I’m not sure about that…it’s a bit too infested for my tastes.”

Everyone watched Imhotep’s slaves, without their master they seemed to be ambling around, probably waiting for the plague to pass and their skin to return to normal. It would take Imhotep’s death however to restore their minds.

“Their last orders were to kill us, right?” Magdalene was back to chewing her lip.

Rick was the first to notice the contemplative look in her eye. “What’ve you got rolling round in that hat of yours?”

“Oh, nothing much…remind me, what floor is your bag of tricks on?”


	16. Dreaming of a dead woman

“Nothing much!” Jonathan was hysterical. “This is ridiculous, dangerous, it might not even work!”

Rick was checking how many bullets he had left for his handguns. “Which is why it probably will.”

“I’m still not happy about this.” He whinged, and kept on whinging.

Everyone else ignored him, Magdalene was taking off her sturdy boots that she had haggled for a newspaper and (really, of all things to ask for) a kiss on the cheek. She dusted her hands off and approached Ardeth rather tentatively.

“Um, Mr Bay? I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to do something else as well. You-you see I can’t ask Jonathan because I don’t think he can do it and Rick-I mean Mr O’Connell-has his guns you see and we need to make as much noise as possible.”

“What is it you need me to do?” He did not seem to care that she was so flustered.

Her head dropped to look at her feet and she pointed with one arm at the fort. “I need you to help me up there.” She was pointing to a balcony about ten feet off the ground.

“This is ridiculous.” Jonathan repeated, watching Magdalene wobble about on Ardeth’s shoulders like a circus act.

“Have you two not gone yet?” She growled.

With the leverage of two people whose combined height was at least twelve feet tall, reaching the balcony was relatively easy but it wasn’t fun getting there. Magdalene’s cheeks were burning in shame at the thought of being stood on Ardeth in some very tatty socks. He was a deadly, highly-trained warrior who commanded who-knows-how-many men and defended the earth against all evil.

And she was using him as a pair of stilts.

There was a scream, probably from Jonathan. There was a shot, probably from Rick. There were several shots, definitely Rick. Time to move. She grabbed a stone pillar holding up the balcony and swung a leg upwards to push herself over the edge. Sticking her head out between the pillars she called out under her breath.

“Sorry Mr Bay! Hope you’re alright!”

He touched his fingers to his forehead in response, (was that a good thing?) hurrying off to join the other two in the grand distraction.

And a distraction it was, there was all sorts of shouts and yells going off. Imhotep’s command was evidently still in effect and there was a great fight occurring below. All that meant for Magdalene was there would be no one left up here.

She curled her toes, free to move now she wasn’t wearing shoes, around the miniscule foothold provided by the gaps in the large brickwork where the mortar had worn away. Hold on with your hands, push up with your feet. She only had to climb up to the window above and tumble through as gracefully as possible, before padding lightly through the halls and corridors.

She found their room in relative quiet, just the murmur of the fight down below. The boys were instructed to cause a big enough distraction to get her in, then she would give them the next set of instructions, she had a semi-formed idea of how she would get out.

“Let’s hope this plan isn’t a bust.” She muttered to herself.

Magdalene’s own trusty bag was where she’d left it, under the desk. Happy she was no longer parted from her holdall of possessions, she grabbed it and gave it a hug. Perhaps it needed washing after all this was over. Rick’s bag was more difficult, it wasn’t in the main room at all so she had to shoulder open the bedroom door. Rick had broken the lock when he saved Evy from Imhotep the last time and the double doors had closed back on themselves in a twisted way.

The doors banged into the walls and the noise echoed through the empty floor and Magdalene cringed.

Scuffling emanated from the end of the corridor and got louder. Magdalene whirled around to look at the doorway with wide eyes and ran for the bedroom. She skidded under the bed, skin of her palm rubbing and squeaking against the wooden floor.

Panting, she looked through both sets of open doors to the corridor beyond. She licked her lips and didn’t even dare blink. Eventually, someone pattered through and stopped at the doorway to the apartment room. It was one of the plague victims, boils up the side of his neck, with a gormless expression and holding a butter knife as a weapon. He saw nothing, turned and ran on.

Just someone who was late to the party downstairs.

Magdalene exhaled in relief and looked to her left to see something right next to her nose. She jumped out of shock and slammed her palms against the floor. Just Rick’s gun bag. Well she’d found that at least.

She paused for a moment, and considered the absurdity of the situation she was in. This really was ridiculous; no sane man would believe any of this ever happened when they made it out the other side.

Dashing back, unheeding of whether anyone else was around waiting to kill her, she near flung herself at the balcony.

“Scamp! Are you done yet?” Rick screamed over the sound of his own guns.

They were outside now, trying to hold off the stampede. Magdalene had to stop and do a double take when she saw Ardeth. He was twirling his sword around with so much grace and beauty it was hard to take note of the fact that he was killing people with every cut. He spun around and she couldn’t stop herself from being mesmerised by the glint in his eye.

“Woah.”

This was the best part of her adventure so far.

Rick noticed that she hadn’t moved and shouted again. “Maddie! Now!”

She shook her head and blinked several times. “Right! Part two lads! Lead them back inside so I can climb down!”

“You what!” Rick shrieked.

She grinned at them and nodded, her hyper little self being no reassurance to those below, then disappeared to fetch the bags. Ardeth lowered his sword and all three of them backed away down the steps, no longer attacking. He had wondered about how she would get back down, as a tactician himself he knew she would have limited options.

“This was the plan all along my friend. We cannot fight all of them.”

It was Rick’s turn to complain. “I really hoped she was joking. Why can’t she be joking?”

They tried for a way to run around them but the throng had managed to pen them in, moving excruciatingly slowly now the three men weren’t trying to kill them. Jonathan opened one of his eyes he had been keeping closed, they were still walking forward, nasty looking knives in the air.

“Oh dear…it’s been fun chaps.” He said.

“Maddie do something!” Rick barked out.

She bit her lip and began running about the balcony in a flap. “Oh…um…oh dear...oh…OH!”

The others watched her bend down and came back up, holding Rick’s shotgun like some cowboy.

“HEY!” Magdalene yelled. She fired the shotgun, the recoil making her lurch backwards and the blast knocked off the face of the wall above the main entrance.

The crowd turned slowly to look at her, like a group listening to their leader give a speech.

She gestured to them with her hand. “Come get me you sons of bitches!”

The cry rose up again and most of them flooded into the fort to rush up the stairs to kill her. On the other hand, a group of them crowded around the outside building, stopping her from climbing down. She looked terrified.

“I hadn’t really thought this through fellas!”

Ardeth looked about and found the wreckage of a stall of woven baskets. There was a rope coiled amongst the bits and pieces that he picked up, that should be long enough. He used his immense strength to throw it up to Magdalene.

“Tie it around the balcony, then throw it back to me.” He said.

She did as he instructed. Ardeth tied the other end to a nearby tree growing in the middle of the quad, right next to a scorch mark from when it had rained fire. Luckily for them the tree had survived. This made an aerial rope-slide for her to use. Magdalene threw Rick’s bag over her shoulder, her own bag was used as a makeshift sling. She paused, lips pressed together, and stood on the lip of the balcony looking at a very long drop down into a crowd of people who would kill her with their bare hands.

“I will catch you.” Ardeth promised.

She lunged, praying that the rope wasn’t too low down for the zombified slaves to grab at her ankles, tucking her knees into her chest. Seconds later she knocked against Ardeth’s chest and his arms encased her. Unwilling to wait for her shaky legs to get back in gear, he dropped her shoes in her lap and they ran from the courtyard as fast as they could move. It was some time before Magdalene’s head stopped spinning from dread and dizziness and she realised she was being carried like some sort of small child.

“Mr Bay! Put me down!”

He did as she demanded and left her to catch up with Rick. “We should go back to the museum, it is safe there, we can barricade the doors.”

Barricade they did. Boxes, sofas, models of Egyptians, bookcases, everything they could move went against the doors. Once they were done they realised it was going to be difficult to get out again, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Jonathan fell asleep almost immediately, but the other three stayed awake.

“Thank you for helping me Mr Bay.” Magdalene said. “And for catching me.”

He gave her a look she’d never seen him give before. “Please call me Ardeth. You are a brave young woman Magdalene, your plan was…effective, even if it was risky.”

“Risk’s my second name, but if I have to call you Ardeth you have to call me Maddie.”

As she tied her shoes back on, Magdalene was smiling uncontrollably, he had looked at her not with confusion or war-like superiority but as a friend and with respect. It made her feel special.

“Your name is Magdalene, my name is Ardeth.” He argued. “You must sleep.”

“You and Rick aren’t sleeping.” She pointed out.

Rick jumped down from the barricade. “That’s because, I’m on guard and…he’s on guard too.”

She stuck her hands on her hips and pursed her mouth, although it was more a twist of the lips, she hadn’t quite mastered the technique.

“You only need one person on guard, which can be me.”

“No.” Rick steered her towards the centre of the room, a warm hand on her back. “Him I can’t make go to sleep. You I can.”

“I don’t want to! I have a headache!”

“Then sleep it off.” He ordered.

Magdalene growled under her breath, curled up on a spare chair and tried to ignore the drumming sensation in her skull.

* * *

She woke up in pitch black again. Imhotep was there, he smiled at her, stood next to Evy. Magdalene tried to call out to her but nothing came out of her throat but strangled air. Imhotep’s robes were now split, and he wore nothing more than some sort of skirt that covered the necessities. He had a very nice torso. Magdalene forced herself to swallow and refocus on his face. She still couldn’t move an inch.

Imhotep was taking something out of his robes, a golden, double-edged blade…it looked sacred, barely used but still sharp enough to kill anything Imhotep wanted to kill. He shook his head slightly and made direct eye contact with Magdalene, reaching his hand out to her. She took it and he squeezed ever so gently, like he was consoling her. Imhotep raised the dagger high and Magdalene thrashed about in her head.

Strictly speaking she was already in her head, but even a dream could think and you couldn’t think without a head.

No, no he can’t. She watched as the knife went ever higher. Imhotep smiled at her again, it was a sorry sort of smile. A smile of unhappiness. The knife came down.

* * *

“STOP IT!”

She screamed loud, loud enough to raise mummies who hadn’t been cursed back from the dead. Her mind was still panicky from the effects of the dream so, in her disorientation, she fell out of the chair. Both Rick and Ardeth looked over, tense and alert from keeping watch over a now dead city. The noise even woke up Jonathan who mumbled in confusion.

“Where? Evy? What’s going on?” He said.

“Maddie?” Rick knelt down in front of her. “What happened?”

She was gasping for air, staring into space, covered in a cold sweat and unable to make any sense whatsoever. It was almost like her dream, unable to speak no matter how hard she tried.

Rick tried to calm her down. “Hey. Hey, take it easy.” He looked up at the other two men. “How are you supposed to calm a woman down?”

She was panicking even more and Rick had to help her breath properly again.

“Maddie, breath with me. In. Out. In. Out.”

“She isn’t having a baby!” Jonathan protested.

“Shut up!”

Magdalene lunged and hugged Rick with everything she had. Rick’s face contorted in pain at her python grip but he patted her on the back as she gradually stopped hyperventilating and calmed down. Once they had gotten her back in the chair everyone was much more relaxed. Magdalene was perfectly fine apart from the odd hiccup as her breath caught, although she refused to relinquish her grip on Rick’s hand.

“Magdalene what has happened?” Ardeth asked.

“Maddie you’re driving us crazy, just tell us.” Jonathan said.

“Oh, back off would you?” She snapped.

“Maddie…” Rick’s tone said that they didn’t have time for this.

“Alright, alright.” She grumbled. “I had a dream about Imhotep, he was about to stab Evy. I’ve had a dream about him before.”

Ardeth looked bleak. “You dream about the creature.”

“Imhotep. He-he told me that dreams have power. That I dreamt of the future.” She looked at them tearfully. “He said the Book of the Dead gave me dreams. What if this is a dream about the future too?”

Jonathan sat on the arm of the chair and put his arm round her shoulders. “Don’t worry Maddie, old chum. It’s coincidence, that’s all.”

She leant on him and bit her lip to hold back tears. They often forgot she took this as seriously as they did and she was perhaps more vulnerable than anyone else.

“Tell us.” Rick said.

She did, every detail, every dream. The darkness beforehand, her inability to speak. Imhotep’s appearance (she didn’t tell them about his torso) and every movement he made. She told them too of the conversation he had with her, how he promised he wouldn’t kill her and the way his eyes recognised something in her. Like she was a familiar face.

“It was strange. It was like he didn’t want to talk to me but changed his mind when he saw me. And the way he spoke. He was speaking English b-but he wasn’t, no that’s it. He spoke Egyptian and I heard English.”

Rick shook his head and squinted his eyes at Ardeth. “This mean anything to you?”

“This is nothing I’ve ever heard of. But it can be useful, we must hurry before Imhotep performs the ritual.”

“Don’t worry, she won’t die.” Magdalene whispered. “I saw it.”

“Saw what?” Jonathan asked.

“In his eyes…I didn’t watch him stab Evy but his eyes didn’t change, they just kept looking at me.”

Ardeth was not willing to believe this. “He is a creature of the dead, he is evil, we know nothing for certain.”

Suddenly she stood up. “You three are going to sleep. We’re leaving this place at dawn and if you two,” she pointed to Rick and Ardeth “don’t sleep for at least an hour or two I’m going to knock you for six.”

“Maddie-” Rick tried.

“No.” She shut him up. “I can’t sleep after that and we can’t leave until it’s daylight.”

Jonathan and Ardeth chuckled at Rick’s hanging jaw.

“I’d do as she says my friend.” The warrior advised him. “She is dangerous with that look in her eye.”

She proudly put her hands on her waist and grinned at them in a hero pose. With Magdalene’s good humour restored, they managed a few hours of light sleep before she woke them up at dawn. According to Rick, there was only one person who could help.


	17. A step too far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Year's update! Hopefully with University getting easier I can re-start my update schedule for everyone. Please comment to tell me what you think so far! (Also I've been writing a bit for Book 2 this week - does anyone want a sneak peek?)

They managed to find their way back to the car, and steal a substantial amount of food, without seeing a soul. The car was bruised and battered but she still ran well enough. Rick slung the two bags into the back for Magdalene to oversee. She sat quite happily next to Ardeth, who was tense and uncommunicative with apprehension about Imhotep but she hoped her sunny mood helped cheer him up.

All three men were still very dour looking as they drove up to a tiny group of tents and a smaller looking version of the fort, a small World War One plane standing by. Magdalene squinted at it from under the shade of her hat.

“Morning, Winston.” Rick raised his arm in greeting. “Uh, a word?”

The air force captain was sat drinking tea under the shade of an umbrella next to the weirdest looking box Magdalene had ever seen. There was a giant horn on top of it!

“So, what’s your little problem got to do with His Majesty’s Royal Air Corps?” He asked, taking a sip from an ornate china cup.

The captain’s manservant slapped Magdalene’s hand away from the box that was playing music. She hissed softly under her breath.

Rick frowned at her and addressed Captain Winston. “Not a damn thing.”

Captain Winston looked up swiftly and put down the teacup, it looked ridiculously miniscule in his giant paw, barely useful for quenching thirst. “Is it dangerous?”

“Oh, you probably won’t live through it.” It was an odd selling point but the Captain seemed to think it worth his time.

“By Jove, do you really think so?” He said grinning.

“Well everybody else we’ve bumped into has died. Why not you?” Jonathan, like Rick, was quite happy to assure the Captain of his certain death.

Ardeth found this very peculiar, he was the only one who hadn’t prior knowledge of Captain Winston’s desire to be reunited with his army squadron. Magdalene smiled at him perceptively and bent down again to look at the music box. She was about to lift a lever of some sort when her hand got slapped again.

“Ow! Hey, will you cut that out?” She accidently caught the attention of everyone else.

“What? Never seen a gramophone before, lassie?” Captain Winston chuckled.

She shook her head, blushing. “Don’t often see fancy stuff like this.”

Captain Winston gave another of his deep chuckles. “My dear, you are a rare breath of fresh air. ‘Specially in a desert like this.”

“Winston.” Rick brought him back to the matter at hand.

He stood up. “Oh, yes! What’s the, uh, what’s the challenge then?”

“Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world.” Rick spoke as casually as if he were checking a list of daily chores.

“Oh!” Winston gave another laugh, the sort of laugh you could only get from an old English man, patriotic to the core. He produced his hand with a flourish and saluted as you did in the air force, chuckling again.

“Winston Havelock at your service, Sir.” He grinned.

With that matter settled, they set off for the plane. Magdalene set off last and ran to keep up with them, kicking up the sand as she moved. Deserts were hard to walk in and the downward slope made balance difficult.

“So how far is Hamunaptra?” She asked, her voice slightly muffled.

Rick turned back. “Are you eating?”

She swallowed. “No.”

He stared.

She relented and went on the defensive. “They were just sitting there! Loads of funny little cakes. We haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

Jonathan sniffed. “Didn’t you eat four bread rolls on the way here? And most of the fruit. And you drank half the gin while we were sleeping!”

“I’m a growing girl.” She argued.

Rick trod his way through the sand and stuck his hand in her pocket. Magdalene kicked up a fuss, squirming and slapping at his arms but he withdrew his hand holding the cup and saucer Winston had been drinking out of. Clearly the appeal of inlayed china tea cups was not just for their beauty but their value.

“I’m a homeless vagrant! I’ve got to live some’ow!” Magdalene was scrabbling about in Ricks grip, trying to reach for the cup.

Rick gave the cup back to the manservant who was stomping up to them in a great huff. It was very impressive, it’s hard to stomp in sand. He snatched at the cup and saucer shouting angrily in Arabic and marched back the way he came, kicking up little sprays of sand in his wake.

Magdalene sulked, she was a very good sulker. “Not like the Captain’s going to miss them. You told him he’s going to die.”

Captain Winston, of all people, walked up to her and ruffled her hair. “Nothing wrong with the girl, O’Connell. She’s just looking after herself.”

Always the one to take the opportunity to tell tales of the War, which he promised were only a little bit exaggerated, he put his arm around her and they began walking to the airfield’s only plane. Magdalene was laughing at one of Captain Winston’s stories as the other three wondered about the young woman.

Jonathan put his hand in his pocket. “Evy seems to see her like some sort of sister. She was talking about taking her home to England.”

“Well the scamp sure can get people to like her easily.” Rick said.

“Yes.” Ardeth agreed. “It is most confusing. She is quite the woman.”

“She isn’t a woman, she’s a girl. They all do it. It’s like they were made to bamboozle men.” Jonathan walked away, over to the plane where Captain Winston had Magdalene in fits of giggles.

Soon, they were soaring over the dunes, racing towards Hamunaptra. The noise from the propeller was deafening. There was no chance of any protection from the wind, the plane was only built for two. Winston had to drive and Rick was the best shot by a country mile, so he took the seat with the machine gun. Everyone else was strapped to the wings, to Jonathan’s great distaste.

Captain Winston, great pilot that he was, had some trouble remembering that he was neither back in the War nor carrying experienced passengers. Rick was the only other one to have flown at all. He was dipping and diving and veering all over the place.

Rick whistled to Jonathan over the racket of the propeller. “Are you alright?”

“Do I bloody look alright?” Was the very angry yelp in reply.

Rick turned and whistled to the other side, where Ardeth and Magdalene were tied down. “How you doin’?”

Ardeth was enjoying the ride way too much to answer, his giant grin was the only thing visible other than the leather flying cap and goggles. Magdalene was somewhere in-between the boys’ opinion. She found the fast travel exhilarating, the rush of adrenaline as she sensed the adventure building up. All the same she was a good two hundred feet in the air and that wasn’t a very good place to be whilst strapped to a plane wing with a makeshift harness.

She grabbed Ardeth’s hand for protection.

They caught up soon with a great twister, a tornado made of sand. They kept an even pace with it, the plane shaking slightly as the wind, howling out from the twister, battered at the flimsy machine. Magdalene’s grip on Ardeth’s hand tightened. He took his hand out from under hers and laid it on top. It was sweet of him to offer her comfort, but Magdalene’s brain reminded her that it would do no good if they ended up in the sandstorm.

Captain Winston pointed. “See that? I’ve never seen one so big.”

“Never?” Rick asked.

“No!”

Then it had to be Imhotep. By the looks of things, it had been travelling through the desert all night. Good, that meant they weren’t too late and Evy hadn’t yet been taken to Hamunaptra. Perhaps Imhotep could only travel so fast with passengers aboard. The twister collapsed on itself, dissipating into the dunes, leaving the pilot without a marker to follow. They circled back and Rick tried to look for landmarks to show them the way to Hamunaptra. They circled around a second time and Rick spotted three dots in the sand.

It was Evy, Imhotep and that rodent Beni.

Magdalene risked a wave at Evy during a fly by, even though it was doubtful she would notice. She saw Imhotep tilt his head though. He had noticed.

“Oh…my…God.” Rick’s exclamation did not sound good. “Hey, Winston! Pedal faster!”

Magdalene twisted her head and saw a wall of sand growing up into the sky. The plane was cast in shadow as it thundered towards them. She looked dead ahead with wide eyes, praying to un-see that tower of death.

The army captain was relatively unfazed. “Hang on, men!”

He dropped the plane straight down into a dive off the cliff where they had once stood waiting for the rising sun to reveal the City of the Dead. Magdalene swore any closer to the rock face and the bottom of the plane would be shaved off.

All she heard on the way down was Jonathan’s scream. She found it inexplicably comforting to know someone was more afraid than she was. Really this was just like one of those rollercoaster rides she had heard people talking about. Except they didn’t have an explosion of sand rolling down the track after them. Rick began firing behind them, screaming at the wall of sand. This time Ardeth was the one to turn.

“It is the creature.” He yelled over the noise of the plane, the sandstorm and the machine gun. “You can see his face is in the sand.”

Magdalene nodded and wrapped her arms around her head as they were swallowed by the storm. Captain Winston paid no regard to the change in weather as he fought for control of his plane. They were wheeling around and around and Rick and Magdalene joined Jonathan in screaming. Alongside how to be a master swordsman, Ardeth must have been trained in how not to fear certain death, the only change in his mood was that he stopped smiling.

“Here I come, laddies!” Winston was having the time of his life, and defying gravity quite well now they were all upside-down.

The plane was now trailing smoke as the sand fell back to earth where it belonged. They were more or less drifting now, there was no propulsion coming from the dying engine as it was licked with flame. A loud bang was followed by a splutter, the engine was coughing like an old smoker who had inhaled one pipe too many.

Magdalene’s only thought was We’re not going to make it as the stress of the situation finally got to her and she started chuckling hysterically. They landed with great aplomb the other side of a large dune, sand and smoke everywhere. An exploding landmine couldn’t have done it better.

“Ugh…” Magdalene realised she wasn’t dead and tried to rub the disorientation from her brain. She slipped from her harness with relative ease being so skinny.

They had been incredibly lucky, the wings and body of the plane were intact, just separated. It could have been significantly worse. Magdalene pulled her hat out from her bag where it had been stored for safe keeping during the flight and dropped it back on her head, cord around her neck.

Ardeth was flailing around, still strapped to the plane and looking for all the world like an uncoordinated foal. Magdalene giggled as she cut through the straps with her dagger and helped him stand up straight.

He wobbled about blindly, his flying goggles were twisted on his face and pushed his eyes shut. He pulled off the hat and goggles in one go and his hair went flying everywhere. It didn’t help his balance, he was dizzied from the crash, a lot dizzier than Magdalene was.

Rick threw his bag of weapons out of the cockpit and jumped out after it. His foot caught on the lip of the cockpit and with a startled cry, he fell back on his ass. Magdalene giggled again. Her body was in one piece but perhaps her brain had taken a little beating.

“Excuse me.” An English accent called out. Jonathan’s wing had flipped on landing and he was still strapped to it, but upside down. “Um, a little help would be useful…if it’s not too much trouble!”

His respectable Britishness was lost as he yelled out, still shaken from the exhilarating transportation arrangements. He had not found it as fun as everybody else and his temper got the better of him. Rick appeared from amongst the wreckage, still staggering about like one of the many falling-down drunkards Magdalene had met on her travels.

“Yeah, yeah. All right.” He said.

Ardeth was fiddling about with the plane wreckage. He tore the machine gun off its stand and examined it whilst Rick pulled Jonathan from off the wing. Magdalene watched him weigh it about in his hands, working out how it fired. He noticed her staring.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. It was a new experience, I’m all about new experiences.” She brushed her fringe from her eyes and her hat fell off. “You, uh, you look nice without the-” she mimed the headdress that she had not seen him without until now.

“Oh?”

She continued miming, moving her hands vaguely around her head and drawing a line across her brow. “Yeah, it-uh…your hair looks nice, um, not nice, well it is but I meant wavy, and you can see the-the other tattoo. It’s a very nice tattoo.”

She walked away without another word to help Rick pick up a fallen Jonathan.

“Winston! Hey, Winston!” Rick called. He stopped when he reached the Captain and put his fingers to his neck.

There was a very long silence.

“He’s not dead, is he?” Magdalene called, it was really more of a whimper.

Rick went quiet and gave her and Jonathan a look that said it all. There was an almighty shunting noise as the wreckage started slumping into the earth.

“Quicksand!” Jonathan pulled Rick back away from the dead captain.

Rick went back in to grab Magdalene who was frozen on the spot. “Get back! It’s quicksand.”

They ran a good distance away, watching Rick’s friend slide into the murk. Magdalene touched Rick’s arm to comfort him. Rick gave him a quick army salute, Magdalene copied the one Winston had given them that morning, salute over the right eye, palm facing outwards. He wished to join his men and now he had.

Rick picked up his bag and led them off to Hamunaptra. Ardeth had shouldered the machine gun and walked behind the rest in case something came out at them. Magdalene shouldered her holdall and put her hat back on her head to stop her neck burning in the sun. She walked next to Jonathan in silence. She had liked Captain Winston, he was funny, and a true Englishman. She reminded him of the gardener back when she lived with the priest. Always jolly and a bit of an oddball, oddballs were always the nicest people to be friends with.

This had gone too far for them all.


	18. Whiskey Baptism

The heat soon worked its way through Magdalene’s leather hat, burning at her skin and making her lightheaded. She wasn’t faring so well, the immense stress of the flight followed by the crash had left her brain addled. And an addled brain did not like blistering heat.

She was swaying about and her pace was dropping. Ardeth, too busy watching to see if the creature would appear to ensure that they had died, didn’t notice anything. Nor did Jonathan. Sobered by the death of Winston he kept his head down as he walked and followed Rick’s footprints, until Magdalene was overcome by the temperature and swayed into him, collapsing.

“Maddie?” Jonathan supported her head as she lay in the sand. “Maddie! Wake up!”

She let out a groan, her eyes rolling back in her head and her eyelids flickered shut.  
* * *  
_Evy was stood there in the sand, stood facing Beni. Magdalene watched as she said something too him, a nasty look on her face. She was too far away to hear, or was it that there was no sound in this dream? Being unconscious was different to being asleep and it could alter the dreams she had. Beni looked frightened by whatever Evy had said and ran off._

Don’t worry Miss Evy, we’re coming for you.

_Magdalene had said nothing out loud but Evy turned as if she had heard her. Seeing Magdalene, she smiled and walked towards her with open arms. Evy embraced her in a hug which Magdalene relished as much as she could without being able to move her arms to hug back._

_When Evy let go, Magdalene looked at her, only for her blood to curdle as she stared at the face of Imhotep. He reached up to caress her cheek, his hand was cold._

_She had been willing to try and understand his pain. Willing to believe he wasn’t pure evil, but that evil hand manifested itself in him. That he was just a man in love who needed someone to help him._

_He killed Captain Winston._

_Magdalene didn’t know if he could hear her thoughts but at the memory of the Captain his eyes narrowed and his face was overcome by shadow._  
* * *  
She was woken up abruptly, Imhotep had been opening his mouth to speak but Magdalene’s eyes flickered and suddenly she was back in reality with Jonathan, Rick and Ardeth staring at her.

Jonathan was splashing her face with a hip flask to revive her.

“Jonathan are you trying to baptise me with _whiskey_?”

He shrugged. “It’s the only thing we had.”

“Well next time use rum.” She got up on unsteady pins and sipped from the hip flask before giving it him back.

“You had another dream, didn’t you.” Rick said. It wasn’t a question.

She told them.

“Well at least we know Evelyn’s putting Beni in his place.” Rick commented.

Ardeth hummed, eyeing Magdalene up and down. It was one thing for her to be dreaming about Imhotep in future premonitions. He had seemed quietly furious when she said he’d hugged her.

“P’rhaps Imhotep wants me on his side or the like.” She said. “He said dreams have power, he could probably put ‘em to use if given half a chance.”

“We can’t waste any more time.” Ardeth picked the machine gun back up. “Are you alright to keep walking?”

Magdalene dusted herself off. “Mr Bay I am, as Miss Evy would say, perfectly alright.” She said with only a small wobble.

Ardeth insisted she walk next to him, using him for support if ever she felt dizzy again or lost her balance. Magdalene stoically refused to collapse again, she was worried she was getting too familiar with Ardeth and was determined to make the rest of the way to Hamunaptra completely independent of support. She did like however when Ardeth put her arm around his neck after she tripped up a few times. She almost blushed.

She was back to her old self by the time they reached the City of the Dead. They lit torches and wandered through as far as they could before they reached a rockslide that had left debris blocking the entrance to the next chamber. They didn’t know the inner workings of the city like Imhotep did and were forced to clear it, it was the only path they knew that led them deeper into the city labyrinths.

Despite Magdalene’s insistence she was feeling less faint than she had in weeks, Rick had thrust a canteen of water at her, picked her up and sat her on a bunch of rocks with the warning that if she moved he would take her dagger off her and stick it through her hat.

She didn’t move.

Jonathan was in charge of holding the torch for Rick and Ardeth as they cleared the rockslide. In his angst to get his sister back he’d become something of a backseat driver.

“I’d take those bigger stones first. Take them from the top, otherwise the whole thing will cave in on us. Come on. Put your backs into it.”

If the stares of Rick and Ardeth could kill, not even Imhotep could survive them.

“Yes, well, you’ve got the idea. Chop, chop.” He wandered away from them and held his torch up to the walls, the remnants of lavish paintings still there after all these centuries.

Magdalene shifted a bit, wanting to help, but Rick sent her a warning glance and she stayed still.

“I say…” Jonathan picked out a little jewel from the wall, it came unstuck with a ‘pop’. “Gents, you should come and have a look at this.” He held it flat out on his palm.

There was a small squeal and Jonathan began to scream for his life. Magdalene looked in horror as a lump went crawling up the inside of his arm.

“What?” Rick turned and yelled.

“My arm! My arm!” He was writhing around, still screaming.

Rick tore open his shirt and the four of them watched the mass travel up his shoulder. “Woah!”

“Do something!” He squawked.

“Hold him!” Rick instructed, flipping out a knife.

Ardeth twisted Jonathan’s other arm behind his back and wrestled him still. Magdalene grabbed his head and forced him to look the other way.

“Do something! Do something!” Jonathan yelled before Magdalene could turn his head away from Rick’s knife. “Not that! Not that!”

He screamed again and Rick dug the thing out. They all watched a scarab beetle fly across the room and land on its back, squealing as it up righted itself and ran right towards them. Magdalene screamed as Rick took out his gun and shot the nasty creature.  
* * *  
Imhotep was contemplative as he arranged the precious canopic jars of Anck-Su-Namun. Soon he would have his love, back from the dead and they would rearrange the world to their liking. He was all-powerful now, greater than any Pharaoh. He would give his love the world on a plate.

A shot rang out and he looked up. The woman, his sacrifice, said the name of one of the men who fought to kill him.

That meant they were alive.

With a swift movement and a spell that rolled off his tongue as familiar as it was three thousand years ago, he summoned two of his priest and sent them after the intruders with instructions to wake more of his loyal following and kill anyone they found.

It was a shame. That meant killing the young girl, if she hadn’t been killed already when their…flying object exploded. He saw in her a hunger he had in his early days in the temple of Osiris, it was a familiarity that unlocked some vestige of kindness in him. She was also remarkably perceptive, she could read his soul.

It had unnerved him at first but she had been touched by the Gods, given the gift of dreams to see the future. Dreams were greatly important, she could have been useful. Perhaps even a lower consort to Anck-Su-Namun. It was a shame.


	19. Ardeth breaks his promise

Rick threw his bag and torch through the small gap in the wall, navigating the city was a lot more interesting than walking through darkened corridors. They’d had to army crawl at one point which was fun for Ardeth who had to squeeze through the small passage with a machine gun balanced on his back.

Magdalene wriggled her way through the crack with ease as the thinnest of the four. “Do we have any idea where we are going?”

“The main chamber is at the base of the City.” Ardeth explained. “It was underground even before the city was buried by sands.”

“Right.” She adjusted her bag and picked up a torch.

Rick slung his rifle over his shoulder and took out the oh-so-familiar pistol, shooting in the dark. Magdalene jumped at the shot but the mirror he was aiming at swivelled to catch the sunshine and the chamber was flooded with light.

Even Ardeth was flabbergasted.

“What…what…?” Jonathan looked like he was about to have an aneurism.

They walked down the steps into the greatest treasure trove they had ever seen. Gold coins in heaps, statues of people, statues of animals, jugs, vases, jewellery, caskets, miniature sphynxes, statues with solid gold plating inlayed with hieroglyphs.

“Can you see…?” Jonathan tried to put it into words.

“Yeah.” Rick was the only other one able to talk.

“Can you believe…?”

“Yeah.”

“Can we just…?”

“No.”

They heard a sound not unlike a squealing pig. One may find this impossible (in Jonathan’s case it was) but the gold was forgotten as safety catches were flipped off, torches were lowered and Magdalene dropped onto her haunches, taking out her dagger. She was still no better at shooting Rick’s revolver than before so she didn’t bother wasting the bullets.

A hand erupted from the ground followed by a very decomposed mummy. Yet it clearly didn’t matter to the mummy that it was dead, it was still very much moving and…squealing. It was followed by two more.

After all the fights, plagues, fire raining from the sky, undead creatures, plague-ridden brainwashed slaves, strange ninja-like Egyptian desert warriors and flesh-eating beetles…revived mummies were neither scary nor surprising to Rick.

“Who the hell are these guys?”

“Priests.” The resident strange ninja-like Egyptian desert warrior answered. “Imhotep’s priests.”

“Alright then.” That answered, Rick blasted the closest one with his shotgun.

Ardeth took the opportunity to test the machine gun he’d taken from the plane. It was quite effective. Magdalene thought he was very impressive stood next to Rick, firing the gun, and very strong to be able to stand so still when firing a machine gun that was supposed to be affixed to the cockpit of a plane. She updated her assessment of ‘brooding’ to ‘dangerous and intense’. She felt it was appropriate at this juncture.

Jonathan grabbed Rick’s pistols from their holsters with a grim sort of determination and began firing. Up until now Magdalene never knew he had it in him, he had always covered up with a wise crack or unwitting tomfoolery.

More mummies came from behind the gold piles and it became clear that you could shoot them all you wanted…you can’t kill something that’s already dead. The rescue party retreated as far as they could in the dust that had been kicked up in the kerfuffle, backing into a smaller side chamber with mummies in tow.

Magdalene, without a gun, was unofficially named torch bearer as the only one who could run forward. The other three were running backwards and firing with as much accuracy as you could in a narrow corridor with explosions and smoke distorting visibility. She ducked into a side room and waved the torch around.

“Jonathan! In here!”

He joined her and raised his own light. “There he is!” He ran forward. “Hello Horus, old boy.”

Rick was still shooting at the grisly piles of walking ash. He handed his shotgun to Ardeth and struck a match on his cheek. Ardeth looked offended.

“Time to close the door.”

He threw a stick of dynamite and they all hid behind the feet of Horus away from the explosion.

Magdalene tapped him on the shoulder. “Mr O’Connell,” she breathed “your casual outlook on murdering people in threatening situations floors me. How do you do it?”

“Same way as you.” He grunted as he stood up. “It’s all one big adventure to me.”

They got up and dusted themselves off, Jonathan walked over and kicked a piece of one of the mummies, it looked like part of a skull but obscure, grey, bandaged fragments are difficult to label.

“I suppose we’d better get this thing open.” Rick said. “Anyone have an idea how the Americans did it with that, uh, that dog god statue.”

“Anubis.” Jonathan corrected. “No clue, but I remember you telling us that before they did three of their diggers got the skin melted off their bones by pressurised salt acid.”

Ardeth let out a noise of disgust.

They were all beginning to get a bit antsy. There wasn’t much time left before Imhotep would undoubtedly try and stab Evy and resurrect Anck-Su-Namun. Magdalene’s dream was the only proof they had that Evy would make it out alive and she didn’t even see whether Imhotep completed the ritual. Even she wasn’t certain any more. What sense did it make anyway? Looking at someone’s eyes and being sure that they hadn’t killed anyone.

It made perfect sense. She’d seen people from almost every downtrodden walk of life. Drunks, cowboys, prostitutes, beggars and boozers, highway men (nice people if you knew what you were doing), workmen, workwomen, tommies, travellers and tinkers. It never mattered to her if they had a dead body or two stuffed in their suitcase, she’d watched a few of them go in.

It never mattered if they’d killed, but there was always a shadow about them, right after it happened. Once you’d played God, you looked at life peculiarly for a moment or two until you came to your senses and the looked dimmed back into obscurity.

But Magdalene’s growing fear wouldn’t let her console herself. It told her there was still a possibility they might not see Evy again. Her train of thought had put her in mind of the last dream she had and her heart sunk that little bit further, that was not even a solid vision which terrified her all the more. Still, an adventure was an adventure and what an adventure she’d had, the best there ever could have been.

“Well I’ve never had more fun in my life. Thank you everyone.” Magdalene was rapidly getting serious.

Rick looked at her and not for the first time showed concern for the ‘scamp’. “You make it sound like we aren’t going to make it out of here alive.”

She shrugged. “You might. I might not. It doesn’t bother me.” She rubbed her hand up and down her arm, she was still holding her dagger. “That dream seems to suggest I’m not going to be around much longer. I don’t think being hugged by an undead, all-powerful creature of the night out to destroy the world is a very good omen, do you?”

Ardeth put his hand on her shoulder. “We are all making it out alive. Except for the creature, I guarantee you that.”

“Thanks, Ardeth.” She smiled and walked away, sitting on the feet of Horus. “Well I expect the Book of the Living was a lot less dangerous. Killing someone is much easier with a knife whether you’re an Ancient Egyptian or alive today. I doubt there are any booby traps.”

Rick motioned Jonathan over and gripped his fingers around the lip of the base. “Well, only one way to find out.”

Ardeth was put on look-out in the event that the little mummy creeps came back. He pumped out the spent casings in Rick’s shotgun and reloaded it whilst Rick, Jonathan and Magdalene tried to open up the base of the statue.

Rick and Jonathan were pulling whilst Magdalene, having less upper body strength than the men, tried digging her heels in the crack from her position on the floor and pushing with her legs.

“This is not working at all.” She grunted.

There was a familiar interruption of light squealing and they all looked to the door Rick hadn’t ‘closed’ to see the shadows of a mummy creeping up the wall.

Rick began tugging harder. “Damn. These guys just don’t quit, do they?”

Ardeth cocked the shotgun. “Keep digging.”

He walked towards the sound in the corridor. Magdalene looked up from pushing and saw his back, he was walking straight at something you couldn’t kill with no sign of fear in his walk. This adventure seemed full of fearless people, she felt a little bit out of her depth when they all went around acting brave.

She got up and staggered forward. “It isn’t exactly digging…but-”

“Maddie!” Rick grunted. “Digging or not it’d be easier if you helped!”

“Yes alright-oh look, the damn thing won’t move without the proper tools.” She kicked at the base in frustration with the full force of her worker’s boots and some of the millennia old dust and grit holding the stones together sifted out of the gap.

They all looked at each other, sensing triumph. Jonathan was the first to resume pulling, Rick and Magdalene both following suit and wriggling their fingers into the small divide in the stones. With a great heave and no small amount of grunting the stone worked loose and they dragged it aside. Jonathan dove for a chest buried in the dark cavern.

He wasted no time in throwing off the lid and tossing the wrapping of the book inside. “The Book of Amun-Ra.”

It was true, made of solid gold and glittering in the torchlight like a slice of the sun itself.

“Well done, boys.” Magdalene massaged her shoulder, the stone had not been made for moving once it had been put in place.

There were startled out of their reverie by regular shots. Ardeth was firing at a good number of Imhotep’s mummified priests like a man possessed. His face was contorted in blazing willpower and he was marching solidly forward with each pump and fire of the shotgun.

Until he ran out of shotgun shells.

He turned back to them and said “Save the girl. Kill the creature!”

“Ardeth what are you doing?” Magdalene stepped over Rick, Jonathan and the book, reading the look on his face. “No, no, no, you are not. You are not going in there!”

The other two stayed kneeling and said nothing, looking at Magdalene who was shaking in rage.

“Too many people have died already! Too many!” Her voice was rising higher. “You promised we would all make it!”

He repeated himself to her, standing eye to eye. “Kill the creature.”

With that he turned and ran at the shrieking, writhing mummies, crying out in battle. Rick and Jonathan finally got themselves in gear as Ardeth smacked the closest mummy around the head with the butt of the gun, much the same way Magdalene had smacked many of his men round the head the night he’d attacked them. He was crying out in exertion as he bodily threw himself into the middle of the group. Rick was lighting another stick of dynamite.

“Rick don’t you light that thing. Jonathan! We have to do something!” Magdalene was still shaking. “Fine. I will.”

She took her dagger out her waistband and set off in the direction of Ardeth.

“Jonathan.” Rick said.

Jonathan nodded and got up. “Right.” He grabbed Magdalene by the shoulders and pulled her back. Once he had some instruction he was a lot tougher than usual.

Rick took them both to the side and paused for one last look at Ardeth.

“What are you waiting for? Get out!” Ardeth cried. “Get out!”

Order given, Rick nodded and tossed Jonathan and Magdalene behind an archway, throwing the explosive before diving after them. Magdalene dived after her hat, blown off her head when Rick had pushed her to the ground but was forced to fling her arms over her head and leave the hat where it was as the dynamite blew up, destroying the mummies that had gotten past Ardeth and sealing the Medjai warrior in with the rest.

“You alright?” Rick asked her and Jonathan. “Let’s go.”


	20. Packing a punch

Magdalene had no choice but to be shepherded by Rick and Jonathan. She was ready to fight with all that she had, this was vengeance now. Whether he had killed Evy or not, Imhotep was responsible for the death of Burns, Henderson, Daniels, Dr Chamberlain. All those people lost to fire when it rained lightning from the sky. He had scared Hamed out of his wits. He was responsible for all the brainwashed men they had killed. Doctor Bey. Captain Winston. Ardeth.

Magdalene was not a happy young woman.

They raced through corridors and past dead ends and traps. Past the place where they’d found Burns tongue-less and blind, where Imhotep had cornered them and chosen Evy as his sacrifice. They ran pell-mell down the steps where they saw Evy next to a mummy on a stone table, surrounded in more of Imhotep’s undead priests and Imhotep. Golden dagger in hand.

Jonathan was too overjoyed with the notion of saving his sister to notice all of that and stood at the top of the steps, calling out too her. “The Book of Amun-Ra! I found it, Evy! I found it!”

His face fell grave as a saint when he saw Imhotep and his dagger poised over his sister’s restrained body.

“Shut up and get me off here, Jonathan!” Evy sounded desperate as Magdalene joined Jonathan.

Imhotep looked astounded, he’d clearly underestimated them all and only now realised the risks in taking for granted his priests’ abilities against the soldier, the hero, the hapless adventurer and the uncoordinated traveller.

He moved towards them slowly, laying down the knife as his expression turned to one of furious evil whilst Evy urgently instructed Jonathan on her knowledge of the book.

“Open the book Jonathan. It’s the only way to kill him. You have to open the book and find the inscription.”

Jonathan began wrestling with the golden book as Magdalene noticed Rick, off to the side. He prised a sword out of the hand of one of the golden statues and started towards the group.

“I can’t open it! It’s locked or something.”

Jonathan was getting desperate, turning the book upside down and sideways trying to prise it open and read its content. Magdalene took it off him and ran her dagger over the spine to see if she could split the binding. As she turned it, Jonathan snatched it back and shook it in frustration.

Imhotep reached the bottom of the steps. Magdalene noticed his torso showing. She felt rising tension crawling up her throat. Her dream had come true, Imhotep had raised the dagger and then failed to stab Evy. The problem was that they were no closer to saving Evy than they were before he had been about to stab her and he could well go through with it again and succeed before they got anywhere near her friend.

Imhotep began up those steps and Magdalene went into overdrive. She met him half way across the room with the same expression of unbridled fury.

And clouted him on the jaw with a left hook.

He rotated his jaw, unscathed from the punch and grabbed her by the neck, lifting her above his head and backing her heavily into one of the stone pillars.

“ _You are no longer afraid._ ”

“You, Sir, are no longer fearful.” She hissed.

His grip tightened. _“What has changed?”_

She winced. “How-how are you doing that? Speaking one language and I can hear another. Why only with me, does it only work on a one-to-one basis? It makes my head hurt.”

_“So many questions.”_

“You’re right.” She firmed up and her hands went from trying to prise his grip from her throat down to her waistband. “Too many questions.”

She pulled out her knife and lunged, but his hand closed around the blade as if it were cloth. It didn’t damage his skin in the slightest. Magdalene licked her lips and grew a little more nervous but held his gaze.

_“Join me. I can give you everything. Serve Anck-Su-Namun and I.”_

She laughed as much as she could with the little air she had left. “You’re an attractive bastard but you’re not that attractive. Besides, I’m not in the business of becoming hired help for people who kill my friends.

“You haven’t a loyal bone in your body mate and if there is one thing I’ve learnt on God’s green earth it’s this; no matter what happens you value the lives around you because you’re going to need them to have your back one day. You don’t give a damn about anybody else so when I’ve got you pinned in a corner and cowering you won’t have anybody to give a damn about you. You killed my friends mate, now I’m angry.”

She slapped him again and he put her down, ready to tear her flesh from her bones when she leaned in closer, their faces barely apart.

“You’re a merciless killer but you wouldn’t dare. Not when my dreams make me so valuable.” Her whisper caused a strange emotion to flash through Imhotep’s eyes.

Jonathan called from above, having worked out the mechanism of the Book of Amun-Ra. “We need the key, Evy!”

“It’s inside his robes!” She called from the table.

From her vantage point Magdalene saw Rick sneak up behind the priests, sword in hand and made her move. Her knee met Imhotep’s gut and twisted, ramming her blade in his side. It made little difference to the immortal man but it gave her the time she needed to rush up the stairs to Jonathan. She pushed him back into the catacombs, not that he needed much encouragement to run with the book and raced after him, her holdall dropped and forgotten at the top of the stairs.

* * *

The chain that tethered one of Evy’s wrists to the table broke apart as Rick appeared from nowhere, to Evy’s delight, and chopped at it with a sword. Rick swung his blade at the circle of priests, slicing through their already weak and unstable skeletal frames. Punching one that was climbing on top of Evy he chopped up as many as he could, using the hilt of the sword and his fists as much as the blade. There was even a scissor kick at one point.

 _Show off._ Evy thought.

She struggled with the bracelet around her other wrist as her hero fought on until he swung for four on the disembodied head of the last mummy like a round of golf.

“Mummies.” He smirked, sword over his shoulder like a golf club, evidently proud of himself.

His body was flung from under him by the torso of one of the mummies, still alive and kicking. Even if it had no legs to kick.  
Rick was trying to reach his sword, he now had three different mummies grappling at him, all in bits, whilst Evy was trying to help him from on top of the table.

“Look out, there’s one down…” She trailed off as she noticed something above her line of vision. “O’Connell!”

One of the mummies, one that had impressively kept all four limbs and a head, was walking towards him holding a stone tablet. A big one. Rick tried for the sword again, a mummy’s arms around his neck keeping him pinned down as a disembodied forearm was inching towards the weapon. Rick noticed the arm and an idea sparked, the moment the mummy-hand grabbed the hilt, he grabbed the hand and sliced the legs off the mummy just before he was to drop the stone tablet on him and crush his skull.

The mummy fell backwards in a classic ‘timber’ motion, leaving Rick to wrestle the mummy off his shoulders and get back to it, freeing Evy. Imhotep was stood staring in horror, probably not believing that his plans were possibly in jeopardy.


	21. Imhotep keeps his promise

Magdalene and Jonathan had started to panic as they walked through dusty and neglected passageways.   
  
“We can circle back, I know we can.” Jonathan led her around to the left.   
  
Magdalene trotted beside him, biting hard at her lip in trepidation. “What are those?” She pointed to the cover of the book.   
  
“Hierogly-” Jonathan stopped and Magdalene bumped into his shoulder. “Maddie, they’re hieroglyphs!”   
  
He grabbed her hand with his bandaged one, from the scarab incident, and dragged her the rest of the way, they appeared back in the main chamber as he read the cover of the Book of Amun-Ra.   
  
“Here’s an inscription. ‘Rasheem…rasheem oola… Rasheem oola Kashka!” There was a loud thumping sound as they walked back into the room and from out of nowhere about a dozen armed mummy soldiers marched forward. “Oh boy.”   
  
“Jonathan what have you done now?” Magdalene growled.   
  
Imhotep straightened with renewed confidence at the sight of the soldiers.   
  
“Oh yeah. This just keeps getting’ better and better.” Rick said, clearly in his element.   
  
He raised his sword to protect a mortified Evy, they looked like they had been through the wars…more so than they had already. But at least Evy was no longer tethered to a table, even if she was still in a nightgown.   
  
“Do something Jonathan.” Evy said.   
  
“Me?” He was backing away.   
  
Her voice was quivering. “You can command them.”   
  
“You have got to be joking.” Jonathan said.   
  
“Jonathan? C-command them?” Magdalene was following Jonathan’s lead and backpedalling very fast. She pointed at him in disbelief. “He brought them to life by accident!”   
  
“Finish the inscription on the cover, idiot.” Evy explained. “Then you can control them.”   
  
“Oh. Right.” He disappeared behind a pillar of sandstone.   
  
Everything happened very slowly. Rick and Evy backed to the other side of the room against the march of the Ancient Egyptian soldier guard. Magdalene bit her lip hard as she watched Imhotep, pressed flush to the wall inching around the room.   
  
They all held their breath.   
  
There was a screech and another creepy mummy started slashing at Evy with the gold dagger.   
  
“Who the hell is that?” Magdalene shouted.   
  
“Anck-Su-Namun!” Evy screamed back.   
  
Imhotep spoke more Ancient Egyptian gibberish and three of the soldier guard jumped forward in attack. Rick raised his sword and screamed. The mummies screamed back, their jaws unhinging like snakes and their growls as terrifying as hell itself.   
  
Rick’s breath hitched. “Uh-uh.”   
  
He ran off in two shakes of a scarab beetle’s wings, hopping on ancient mummy skulls across a stagnant river with the soldier mummies in tow. Evy was running away from her own mummy problems and called out for her brother amongst the crypts.   
  
“Hurry up, Jonathan!” She begged.   
  
Magdalene was not having her friend stabbed to death by some long-dead Pharaoh’s fancy concubine, especially not after Ardeth sacrificed himself for them all.   
  
“Oi! Princess!” She picked a rock off the ground and threw it at Anck-Su-Namun.   
  
The undead woman turned and shrieked at her, brandishing the blade. Magdalene, in a fit of either stupidity or selfless bravery, hissed back in Anck-Su-Namun’s face with her teeth bared, grabbed her mummified body, twisted her around and smacked her head onto the stone table. She kicked her in between the shoulders and send her stumbling into a wall.   
  
Magdalene saw Imhotep staring, aghast, and gave him an exaggerated bow for her performance, flourishing her hand dramatically and almost sweeping the floor with her hair.   
  
“Excuse me your Evil-ness.” She winked and ran off.   
  
Rick sliced a rope that was tethered to the floor, suspending a cage in the air that held the remnants of a prison long since dead. He flew into the air to avoid the scythes and spears of the Ancient Egyptian warriors. He re-appeared at the top of the steps and ran out of the room, there was little chance of him running down them with Imhotep stood at the bottom. Having said that, it was a better option than eight vicious, seven feet tall, indestructible mummies and he ran back the way he came with a small cry, panting in exhaustion.   
  
Magdalene watched the mummy soldiers climbing over the walls and dropping silently behind Rick as he looked around for enemy that wasn’t where he expected it to be. Time for her to actually be of use.   
  
She took out her dagger and lifted it to eye level to look at what must be Imhotep’s blood on it. With only a small noise of disgust, she picked out the right rope to cut based on the several other human cages suspended fifteen feet off the floor.   
  
Her blade was blunt and she began sawing frantically at the fraying rope, watching as the mummies dropped down by Rick one by one. Finally, it snapped and she was able to hold on as it drew her upwards. The cage attached to the other end of the rope landed with a crash on top of a statue of Anubis, leaving enough slack in the rope for Magdalene to tug it back down and steady herself against a small ledge on the uneven rocky wall.   
  
“Look out below!”   
  
Rick paused in fighting a mummy with twin golden scythes to see Magdalene swinging through the air with her legs out in front of her.   
  
She crashed heavily into the mummy in front of him and, like a bowling ball through a stack of pins, decked the other mummies in a domino effect.   
  
“Thanks scamp.” Rick was flat on his back from diving out the way of the human wreaking ball.   
  
Holding out her hand she pulled Rick up off the floor with a grin. “A pleasure as always. Want to go rescue the damsel in distress?”   
  
“In a minute.” He replied, clashing swords with one of the mummies.   
  
Meanwhile, Evy was having a little difficulty trying to multitask, Jonathan was asking her questions whilst she tried to run away from a crazed maniac. Albeit a short, crazed maniac. Magdalene had been expecting something more impressive and womanly than the five foot nothing girlish figure.   
  
“I can’t figure out this last symbol.” Jonathan called.   
  
Evy darted between crypts. “What does it look like?”   
  
She turned a corner and was met face-to-face with the corpse. She screamed blue murder as Anck-Su-Namun’s hand closed around her throat.   
  
Magdalene, near useless with her tiny dagger, was hiding behind Rick as he battled furiously.   
  
“Mind if I go ahead of you to save the damsel?” She asked him.   
  
Rick hacked at the mummy in front of him and threw his sword backwards over Magdalene’s head to deliver the final blow. It sliced through the head of a mummy behind them and the skull stayed attached when he brought it back down on the first.   
  
“Oh, please, go ahead.” He barely paused fighting to answer her.   
  
She nodded and ran across the sand. “Hold on Miss Evy!”   
  
Imhotep noticed her and jumped across the room with an otherworldly ability to stand in front of her, blocking her from reaching Evy. Anck-Su-Namun pushed down the blade that would finish off the ritual and transfer her soul into Evy’s dead body.   
  
Jonathan was still confused over the hieroglyphs. “It’s a, uh, a bird…a stork!”   
  
Magdalene watched Rick fall down under the unrelenting force of the mummies and tried to run back the way she came to help him but Imhotep grabbed her arm roughly and stopped her from going anywhere. She stumbled from the force of his pull and landed against his chest. His conceited smirk was sufficient to make her shudder and her skin to tighten over her body in cold abhorrence.   
  
“You Devil. You have no humanity.” She spat at him.   
  
Evy was trying desperately to push the knife away. She was choking on her words with little breath left in her lungs “Ach-A-Ahmenophus!”   
  
Jonathan caught the strangled translation and looked down at the book. “Oh yes, I see.” The man had no sense of urgency about him in the slightest.   
  
Anck-Su-Namun pushed Evy onto the floor and climbed over her, noticing the close proximity of Imhotep and Magdalene. She screamed in jealousy and tackled Magdalene. She howled like a banshee hacking at her face.   
  
“Not now sweetheart.” Magdalene said.   
  
She kicked Anck-Su-Namun in the chest, span her around and kicked her between the shoulders back where she came. Unfortunately for Evy, the mummy concubine ran headlong into her and their struggle began again. Magdalene noticed Imhotep try grab for her arm again and danced out of the way.   
  
“You promised that you wouldn’t kill me, then you sent a load of slaves after me and my friends. You aren’t very good at keeping your word, Imhotep.” She said.   
  
_“Perhaps this can reassure you of my promise.”_   
  
Imhotep grabbed her and pulled her close, closing his hand over her upper arm. Magdalene screamed in pain upon contact and dropped to the ground, skin on fire. She cried at the burning sensation on her arm and shook her head to clear it.   
  
“Bastard.” She spat.   
  
He pulled her up and looked at her harshly.  _“You have no idea what I have done for you.”_   
  
“Maddie would you do something instead of just standing there!” Evy yelled, wriggling out of Anck-Su-Namun’s grip for the umpteenth time.   
  
“Right.” She said grimly.   
  
As much as she was unwilling to she had to run after Imhotep to try and pull him back as he did her, stopping him from getting to Jonathan before he got his brain in gear and read the inscription. Rick was getting backed up the stairs as he fought, his gradual retreat was a sign that they could not fight for much longer. The mummies hacked the sword from his grip and his footing failed him. He rolled down the steps with several undead soldiers marching hot on his tale.   
  
“Uh, Hootash im Ahmenophus.” Jonathan blurted out the rest of the inscription not a second too soon.   
  
Imhotep finally stopped and turned in panic. Magdalene, hanging off his arm, fell over with the force of the spin. She rolled herself onto her back and raised her head to look at the mummy soldiers. They were motionless, weapons pressing into Rick’s face. He opened his eyes to see why he wasn’t being impaled, not that not-being-impaled was a bad thing. There was a moment longer of silence until the four mummies that Rick hadn’t separated into multiple bits took their weapons off his cheek and stood to attention facing Jonathan.   
  
Imhotep desperately repeated, “Kill them! Kill them!” in Ancient Egyptian and Magdalene pumped her fist ever so slightly when he got no reaction from the supernatural creatures.   
  
Evy was still playing ‘dodge the golden blade and the undead woman trying to stab you with it’.   
  
“Jonathan.” Magdalene called. “Time to make your move.”   
  
He was a step ahead of her. “Fa-Kooshka Anck-Su-Namun!”   
  
“Anck-Su-Namun!” Imhotep screamed, he was truly afraid now. For the first time in over three thousand years he was scared and running.   
  
Magdalene cackled, he was getting a taste of his own medicine and even though murder was an evil concoction that on most days made her stomach churn, it tasted smooth and sweet today.   
  
Anck-Su-Namun paused her attack as she noticed death arriving on a four-four marching beat. Imhotep started again for Jonathan with a grimace on his face, calling out a demonic sounding threat. Jonathan dropped the book in fear and backed into the wall but the mummy abandoned his enterprise the moment he heard his love scream his name.   
  
“Anck-Su-Namun!” He cried, distraught.   
  
They all watched the silhouettes on the wall as the immortal blades skewered her like so much mummified meat. Except Magdalene who watched, appalled, at the deluge of emotions rippling across Imhotep’s face. How did it feel to hold on to your all-consuming love for someone day after day in limbo between life and death for three thousand years, to hold onto the promise you will resurrect them, then watch them die?   
  
Could she imagine the torture Imhotep was feeling? No. Did that change the fact she hated him for what he had done? Not in the slightest.


	22. What else is there to say?

“Shit.” She watched Imhotep grab Jonathan with one arm and scrape him up the wall, growling in his ear, Jonathan looked all set to be a goner unless someone hatched a plan in the next two seconds. The resident hero lived up to the challenge; Rick found his sword again and sliced off Imhotep’s arm.

It was still clutching Jonathan as he fell to the floor, distinctly unattached to the rest of the body.

Rick stared at the gross limb then back up at its owner who wasn’t bleeding, not in any pain. Just even more angry than he was before. Imhotep grabbed him with the other arm and launched him into the air, just as he had done after disintegrating Burns yesterday. It seemed a lot longer than a day since the Americans started dropping like severely dehydrated flies but they weren’t about to lose the last one they had.

Jonathan stood up, rubbing at his throat. Magdalene could see the reddening of the skin where Imhotep’s fingers had been wrapped around it. But, ever the man to bounce back from whatever life threw his way, Jonathan raised his other hand triumphantly.

“Evy! I’ve got it.” He was holding the key.

Imhotep by now had reattached his arm in a very disturbing manner and lifted Rick bodily off the floor whilst Evy ran to her brother and they opened up the book.

“Keep him busy.” She instructed Rick, who was being thrown through the air like a rag doll again.

He landed with a grunt against a column and flopped to the floor. “No problem.” He still managed to sound perky and chipper before being chucked up in the air again.

There was a whoop as Magdalene sailed through the air, using the same flying through the air trick she had used on the soldiers who had now all but disintegrated once the book had been opened.

“Woah, whoa!” Her yelps of excitement turned into startled cries as her hands slipped from the rope and she dropped down from her makeshift rope swing. Her flight path – or fall path – landed her on top of Imhotep. She still knocked him down as she had planned but she was distinctly aware that when she devised this plan she hadn’t intended being on top of him. He was unexpectedly warm.

She winked at him and blew him a kiss as she lifted herself off him and chased after Rick to help him off the ground as well. Imhotep seemed too stunned to move.

Evy had opened up the book and was turning through the pages. They were more like individual tablets, each page of the Book of Amun-Rah was solid gold, at least a quarter of an inch thick and indecipherable to the majority of the world’s population.

“Hurry, Evy! Hurry!” Heroic deed done when he pickpocketed the key, Jonathan had reverted to his usual unbeneficial self.

“You’re not helping.” She sang.

Imhotep had lost his robes and was standing in just his skirt affair but it made him no less intimidating as he grabbed Rick and started squeezing the air from his lungs. Rick was making gurgling noises, Imhotep’s thumb pressing on his windpipe.

Imhotep’s jaw lengthened and stretched. A low rumble came from inside him and Magdalene shrieked in horror at the sight. Rick was going to get…sucked dry by that monster. The roar got louder and deeper until Evy exclaimed victoriously.

“Oh! I’ve got it!” She read from the book. “Kadeesh mal. Kadeesh mal. Pared oos. Pared oos!”

Rick’s face was turning an interesting shade of blue by the time Imhotep let go and stared at the ghostly chariot charging down the ancient steps of the chamber. He flung his arms upwards as a strong light flashed in front of the eyes of everyone there.

The horses and chariot galloped back the way they came, the shadow of Imhotep trapped on board as his flesh and blood counterpart chased after it, pleading and begging. Magdalene helped Rick back to the others in the midst of the confusion and chilling wind blowing through the tunnels.

“I thought you said it was gonna kill him!” Rick picked up the golden sword, his voice coming out gravelly from being strangled.

“I don’t know about your definition of dead Miss Evy, but he don’t look dead to me.” Magdalene clenched and unclenched her hands.

Imhotep truly growled like a dog and re-sought to kill Rick, but stopped dead at the sound of a blade running through his flesh.

Evy was the only one who didn’t look confused. “He’s mortal.”

Imhotep’s hand was covered in his blood as he raised it to his face making a noise of surprise. Even though his eyes roved as he realised what had happened, they lingered on Magdalene’s face. She saw his eyes well up, he had lost everything, despair trickled into his tears and he gave up on living. Even in his inhumanity, Magdalene supposed, he was human after all.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered.

No matter how vengeful she had been, she couldn’t bear to watch him die. Imhotep staggered forwards and put his arms around her, a small hug before he lost his strength and staggered backwards into the pool of dead souls. They stayed silent as his body disintegrated, returning to the state they had found it in when they had opened his sarcophagus. But he said something as the faces of long-dead souls appeared in the water to reclaim him, his voice mingling with their collective voice. Evy provided the translation.

“‘Death…is only the beginning’.”

Magdalene turned away from the submerging skull and hugged Jonathan, who returned the embrace when he noticed her distress, one hand comfortingly resting on the back of her head. Rick gave her a puzzled look.

“What’s got you so emotional, scamp?”

“I just helped kill a man, I don’t feel too great.”

“He was trying to kill us!” Rick was exasperated.

She sniffed. “I have been under a lot of stress ever since I stepped foot in this country. I’m having an emotional release, leave me alone.”

Rick rolled his eyes. There came the sound of pouring sand and the ceiling started descending on them.

“Time to go.” Rick grabbed Evy’s hand and ran.

Jonathan did the same with Magdalene who picked up her bag and Rick’s bag, forgotten and battered during the various fights and followed the American out the doorway. They had no idea what was happening, sand was pouring like waterfalls from the ceiling where it was dislodged as the stone rumbled and scraped gradually downwards over the exits.

Jonathan, trying to juggle holding the Book of Amun-Rah and Magdalene’s hand, tripped over the steps and the book slid out of his grip into the stagnant river underneath the pathway. Magdalene picked him off the floor and they ran on, Evy ran back and stood uselessly staring at the water as if it would spit the book back out for her.

“You’ve lost the book!” She complained. “Jonathan, I can’t believe-”

“Come on!” They yelled and ran back to pull her along.

The ceilings were getting ever lower as they ran and the sand was just coming down in thicker and thicker streams. It was impossible to see where you were running with a nearly opaque cloud in front of your face so they relied on Rick’s memory of the way they had gotten in to get back out.

Bent almost double from a low corridor, they entered the chamber where the treasures of the Pharaohs were buried. This time it was Jonathan’s turn to linger over lost treasure. Evy and Rick grabbed his wrists, Magdalene at his back pushing him over the ground, but he still beseeched them.

“Couldn’t we just?”

“No, Jonathan!” Evy stopped him before he could think about touching it.

Magdalene looked over her shoulder to see Beni rushing up the steps. She had wondered where he was hiding during all the life-threatening moments, it made sense it was in the room full of priceless ancient fortunes. He screamed after them as they crawled and slid under the stone door close to crushing them.

“O’Connell! O’Connell! Wait!”

Rick, last under the door, held his hand out as far as he could reach without his head sticking out into the doorway and his skull getting crushed.

“Come on, come on.” He urged.

Beni begged some more but the door was already too far down and it was impossible for him to be dragged out the doorway even if he could reach Rick’s hand.

“Goodbye Beni.” Rick sighed, too preoccupied with surviving himself than mourning the odious little man.

He caught up with the other three as they made it outside to race against the falling pillars of limestone as what was left of the city above ground tumbled and fell. The fall of Hamunaptra.

“Look out, look out! Look out, look out!” Rick was shouting at the top of his lungs whilst Evy made a lot of noise too.

“Oh yes, like I’m going to run with my eyes closed and hope I don’t die!” Magdalene shot back, sick of his unnecessary squawking.

The very sand under their feet sank as they reached the limits of the ancient site, running behind fleeing camels.

Evy found it difficult to run, dressed as she was in her black nightgown so Rick kept a hold of her hand whilst leading them. Jonathan was alright but Magdalene was having difficulties sporting both her bag and Rick’s and tumbled the last few feet into the sand.

The air displaced by the disintegration of the city and exploding rock sent huge mushroom clouds of sand and dust a hundred feet or more into the air. It was a magnificent spectacle to watch but rather tainted, Magdalene felt, by the knowledge that they had destroyed the remnants of such an ancient, magical site that they could have learnt so much from.

Her skin itched from where Imhotep had burnt it and she pushed the shoulder off her oversized shirt to see a mark, a tattoo like the crook and flail symbol they had seen around Hamunaptra. Evy had told her that it was the symbol of Osiris, God of the Living and Protector of the Dead. She covered it up before the others saw.

“What happens now?” She asked.

Evy looked down at her. “Are you going to travel again?”

“I guess. The adventure is over.”

“Why don’t you stay with us?”

It was Rick and not Evy who had offered. Magdalene looked at him, an expression of vague shock across her face.

“You what?”

“Yes.” Evy jumped at the idea. “We want you to stay, right Jonathan?”

“Absolutely.” He grinned. “You’re like family now old chum.”

Magdalene had only one question. “Miss Evy, will you teach me how to read?”

“Of course! So long as you stop calling me ‘Miss’, just Evy is fine.”

Magdalene found just enough energy to get up and embrace her tightly, laughing hysterically. She had found a home, a family. It may have been shock from the fights, from running out of a collapsing dead city, or possibly hysteria, but she felt so giddy with joy she began to cry.

“Is now a good time to tell you all I love you?” She sniffled and wiped at her tears.

Evy laughed and hugged her again, Rick and Jonathan joining in.

“What do you know, you’re human after all.” Rick joked.

They fell back into silence. Magdalene’s energy was well and truly spent and she slumped back down on the desert sands and lay face up, squinting at the sun. The four of them watched the sand clouds folding in on themselves and dropping back to the ground.

A hand came down and Jonathan screamed bloody murder at the jump scare. Evy, on edge herself from repeatedly escaping being stabbed, screamed with him. Magdalene didn’t react. She was just too tired from all the running and didn’t want to move off the lovely warm sand. She did, however, notice Rick pull Evy extremely close to his chest to protect her.

The hand retracted back to Ardeth, sitting on top of a camel very alive. Not even a scratch on him.

“Oh! Thank you. Thank you very much.” Jonathan’s sarcasm had made it unscathed out of the battle as he clutched at his chest, feeling his heart no doubt racing in his chest from the jump scare.

“You have earned the respect,” Ardeth addressed them all with a smile on his face “and gratitude of me and my people.”

Rick and Evy smiled their thanks while Jonathan was still trying to laugh off his near heart attack.

“Yes, well, it was nothing.” He said.

“May Allah smile upon you always.” Ardeth kissed his fingertips and touched them to his forehead at them all in a gesture of love, friendship and peace.

“And…yourself.” Jonathan waggled his fingers in the vague sign of the cross, but Ardeth’s expression showed he clearly valued the sentiment behind it. “Yes, anytime.” Not that they were likely to be finding any more undead mummies in their lifetimes.

“Hello Ardeth.” Magdalene smiled at him, still lying flat out on the plane with her hand shielding her eyes.

“Hello.”

“You, uh,” She gestured at his face “the hair again. Very dramatic. And the, mmm.” She seemed incapable of forming sentences.

He looked down at her with a twinkling eye. “You seem to enjoy sitting on the floor, this is the second time I’ve found you lying on the ground.”

“Yes, well people always say I’m very down to earth.” She chuckled at her own joke. Rick let out a small groan.

“You know.” She continued. “I made a very rousing speech in there about the beauty of life and how that creature had stolen it from my friends. Now you’ve gone and ruined it by being alive! It was a lovely speech, very emotional.”

He laughed and his face lit up vibrantly, he didn’t seem so tired and beaten up after that. “I am sorry I have disappointed you.”

Clicking with his tongue he steered his camel, confident of the direction he was going in. These were his deserts after all. As he rode away Magdalene caught something hanging from a cord on the back of the camel saddle.

“My hat!” She rolled over and sprinted after Ardeth. “You found my hat!”

She unhooked it and pushed herself up to hug him, he was tugged downwards as he balanced on his saddle and supported her weight through the embrace. After eventually letting go she firmly planted a kiss on his cheek before dropping back down onto the ground and he smiled warmly down at her again.

“That’s for bringing me back my hat.” She said.

Then she swung the leather hat as hard as she could on his head and began slapping him repeatedly with it. He brought his hands around his head to try and protect himself while she yelled at him.

“And that’s for running off you great idiot! You could have died you stupid, stupid man!” She shouted.

Jonathan pulled her back and took her hat off her, apologising to Ardeth and reminding Magdalene he was an extremely dangerous warrior with a sword. Ardeth didn’t look angry in the slightest.

“I promised you we would all make it out alive.” He said to Magdalene. “I kept my promise.”

“Can you keep another promise and promise you’ll keep in touch?” She asked.

He was taken mildly aback and looked at her very questioningly. “Wouldn’t it be difficult to visit a traveller?”

She smiled back at Evy and Rick. “I’m not going to be doing much travelling anymore. Being here has shown me that maybe staying with the same people all the time isn’t so boring after all, if you find the right ones. I found a family.”

“I look forward to seeing you then.”

Her smile became a little more knowing. “I think it’s time for a change. Besides, I think in a year or two I might find my calling as a nanny.”

Ardeth followed her eyes as they slid over to look at Evy who was standing very near to Rick. He grasped her meaning and mouthed a silent “Oh.”

She winked at him conspiratorially and stepped back away from the camel. “Safe journey Ardeth.”

“Stay out of trouble.” Rick followed up the sentiment as he left, heading for an open horizon.

Open horizon. Something Magdalene had wished for all her life. Now she was giving it up, there was little point in chasing it anymore. She’d had the biggest adventure anyone on earth could ever have. She’d reached the end of the road. There was no bigger thrill just around the corner.

That didn’t mean she could start having different kinds of adventures.

Jonathan watched Ardeth’s diminishing silhouette with a depressed sigh. “He’s just…leaving us here.” His gaze turned back dejectedly to what was Hamunaptra. “Well, I guess we go home empty handed. Again.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Rick turned to Evy with the most extraordinary look on his face. Both Jonathan and Magdalene made noises of revulsion and retching sounds as they kissed.

“Oh, please!” Jonathan was exasperated, it was probably not his ideal pastime watching his younger sister fall in love. Magdalene made various retching noises from her seat on top of a camel. She may be willing to settle down but she was still clueless on most aspects of ordinary life.

“How 'bout you, darling? Would you like a little kissy-wissy?” Jonathan said to his camel, rapidly regretting going so near to the animal’s mouth. He fanned the air around his face to disperse the smell.

Once Evy and Rick had finished being disgusting, Magdalene planted her had firmly back on her head and they headed off back to Cairo. They didn’t bother thinking about everything they would have to sort out once they got there, they just enjoyed the moment of carefree happiness. Unaware of all the gold sticking out of the bag on Rick’s camel.


	23. Lace and etty-kweety handbooks

“If I have to spend one more day in that pit of darkness and despair I’m marching straight back to Hamunaptra and reviving Imhotep to destroy the world!”   
  
Magdalene marched through the house yelling her head off and muttering some very choice words under her breath as well, if Evy caught her using those she’d end up with another lecture on ‘ladylike language’.   
  
“You have to go to your tutor lessons, Maddie.” Evy looked up from the text she was reading and put her glasses on the top of her head.   
  
“I don’t want to!”   
  
Magdalene walked in, wearing a white blouse and a beige skirt that went to mid-calf. Sensible matching beige heels on her feet, her hair was pinned back from her face with grips and she had a woman’s cravat keeping the collar of her blouse closed.   
  
Evy sighed. “What’s the problem?”   
  
Magdalene sat down with a heavy flump and slouched sideways in the chair. Under Evy’s gaze she growled softly and twisted her body so she sat forwards with a straightened spine and pulled her shoulders back.   
  
“It is pointless me being there.” She said.   
  
The older woman pursed her lips and got up to put the book she had been reading back on its shelf. “I really don’t see the problem Maddie. Ms Gilham is teaching you how to read and write.”   
  
Magdalene scowled. “You can teach me that! With all the books you’ve got, I’ll learn so much quicker than I do there. And the other lessons are stupid. Embroidery! I don’t need to know how to cross-stitch, I know enough to sew a suture and everything else is pointless.”   
  
Evy blanched. “I don’t even want to know how you know that.”   
  
“There’s also cookery and painting. They aren’t even real lessons!”   
  
Evy had hired a tutor to help Magdalene study, mostly by pressurising the Governess into taking her. She had promised Magdalene that it would help her get into university if she ever wanted to.   
  
The door opened to the small library and a well-dressed Rick O’Connell walked in.   
  
“I thought I might find you here.” Rick hugged his wife and kissed her forehead sweetly then addressed Magdalene. “I didn’t expect you though Maddie. Hiding from the old crone again?”   
  
She scoffed. “It’s not a tutor session it’s a prison sentence dressed up in lace and etty-kweety handbooks.”   
  
Rick frowned and looked back at Evy. “I don’t think that’s the right word.”   
  
“It’s pronounced ‘etiquette’ Maddie, and you’ve only been there a few months!” Evy protested.   
  
Magdalene groaned dramatically.   
  
Evy dropped a small novella in front of her and opened up the cover. “Read.” She commanded.   
  
Magdalene scowled and looked at the page, putting her finger under the words as she read the book, sounding out words under her breath if she didn’t recognise them. Whilst she trawled through the text Rick took Evy back behind a shelf and whispered in her ear.   
  
“…They’re here.”   
  
“They’re what? Get rid of them!”   
  
“You don’t think I tried? I’ve half a mind to stick three bullet holes in that wife of his.”   
  
“Rick, don’t joke.”   
  
“I’m not.”   
  
“Evy I can’t read this word.”   
  
Magdalene appeared around the corner and stopped dead, looking at them suspiciously. Evy span round and smiled brightly at her with forced happiness and Rick grabbed the first book he saw and opened it up to read. Magdalene’s suspicious expression deepened.   
  
“What are you two doing?”   
  
“Talking.”   
  
“Reading.”   
  
Magdalene’s head tilted to the side and she read the title on the spine of the book Rick was holding.   
  
“A history of flowers.” She read slowly. “Rick why are you reading a book on flowers?”   
  
Rick started coughing and put the book back on the shelf in a rush.   
  
Evy bit her lip and kept on smiling, holding her hand out for the book. “What are you stuck on?”   
  
Magdalene handed over the text and pointed to the word in the middle of the page. She had moved on from children’s books to proper novels and noted that to herself with pride. Evy said Magdalene was a fast learning student and since they had been back in England she had learnt more than anyone thought was possible in the time they’d been there.   
  
“It says ‘acquiescence’, see?” She pointed to each syllable and Magdalene pronounced them with her. “It means agreement or obedience.”   
  
“Okay.” Magdalene processed the information whilst she reread the sentence. She turned to go but swung backwards, still looking at the book. “Evy, why are you and Rick arguing?”   
  
“We have news.” Evy said.   
  
Rick started coughing again and tapping Evy on the arm but she ignored him.   
  
“Your…family have dropped by for a visit. Your father is asking to see you.”   
  
“Have you tried telling them to bugger off?”   
  
“Maddie, watch your language.” Evy scolded, shocked at her response.   
  
Rick took his gun out, he always kept one on hand. “I already did, they won’t budge. I can shoot them if you want?”   
  
“Please do.” Magdalene said with her eyes focused very intently on the book.   
  
“It really isn’t fair of them to do this. What could they possibly want to do with a daughter they spent half an hour with before carting her off to somewhere…northern.” Evy was more visibly upset than Magdalene was.   
  
Rick sighed. Evy didn’t understand Magdalene’s cold reaction. She had lost her parents when she was an adult, she could grieve properly and she would always miss them. Rick understood Magdalene, he didn’t remember his parents, was too young to mourn them. Magdalene had never experienced parentage of any kind, it was an alien concept to her.   
  
Magdalene gave Evy a hug. She understood why Evy was so unhappy. She had tried so hard to make Magdalene feel like one of them, introducing her as her sister in public, becoming more like a mother sometimes.   
  
Ever since they move to England, around the time that Evy and Rick married in fact, she had gotten incredibly emotional. Magdalene had tried to ask Jonathan if he knew what was wrong but he laughed and told her he’d explain things in nine months.   
  
“I’ll go see them but don’t expect me to be nice to them. I don’t think most decent parents would send their kid off to some old vicar in the middle of Derbyshire.”   
  
They went into the foyer to greet the guests. Magdalene even straightened her skirt in an effort to show them she was a presentable woman, usually she made every attempt to wrinkle it in defiance against female fashion.   
  
They were met by the strangest looking couple she had ever scene. Stood in all her…resplendence was an exceptionally dumpy looking woman with rinsed yellow hair. She looked like something had died on her head and she hadn’t noticed until after she’d attacked it with curling tongues and decided to try and cover it with an absurdly squashed hat. The hat band sported a straggly bunch of felt lilacs to match the colour of her overly ruffled dress.   
  
Next to her was a portly figure with a snub nose, eyes too far apart and a domed forehead. He wore a grey suit with jacket and waistcoat, looking quite dull next to his wife in all that purple. His dark brown hair, a shade lighter than Magdalene’s, and the grey in his embarrassingly wispy moustache put him in his early forties.   
  
“Good afternoon.” Evy greeted them with a smile. “Mr and Mrs Wilson, you’ve met my husband Rick O’Connell. This is Magdalene Carnahan.”   
  
“Magdalene Wilson, surely?” The man said, his voice thin and reedy. It didn’t match his stature at all but it matched his facial hair the way he almost visibly shrank under his wife. “She is my daughter.”   
  
“That she is.” The wife swept forward with all her ruffles and embraced the much thinner girl with two kisses on each cheek. Magdalene moved backwards and whipped out a handkerchief to sneeze into. Those lilacs were perfumed to pretend they were the real thing.   
  
“That would be dependent on you actually giving me a surname, or any sort of name at all.”   
  
Rick tried to mediate. “She changed her name.”   
  
“Not O’Connell? Carnahan is your maiden name, yes Evelyn?” The wife inquired.   
  
“Carnahan suited me better.” Magdalene retorted.   
  
Evy’s smile was becoming more strained by the second, particularly once the middle-aged woman became overly familiar with her first name. “Shall we go to the sitting room?”   
  
The conversation was wooden and artificial, full of social pleasantries and no actual discussion. The Wilsons owned a hotel on the outskirts of London for the upper classes, they had extended the O’Connell’s an invitation but the atmosphere in that room betrayed that it was certain they would avoid it at all costs.   
  
Magdalene straightened her back that little bit more and kept her posture taught. She was trying not to sneeze from all that lilac perfume.   
  
Mrs Wilson (call me Francine dear) kept trying to sit nearer Magdalene, flouncing over her in an attempt to be motherly. She also had an avid interest in the cost of the house with ‘who was your interior designer? We must have him’ and ‘is that ornament real gold?’ and ‘you live in such luxury!’ After a few more minutes of Mrs Wilson describing their townhouse in avid detail, comparing it to the O’Connell mansion, Magdalene joined the conversation.   
  
“I wouldn’t have guessed I was related to you, I don’t look like either of you.”   
  
Mr Wilson’s embarrassed moustache quivered as he drew in a breath. “Well, yes, genetics and all that. I suppose you probably take after your mother.”   
  
Mrs Wilson sniffed. “We can’t help that, can we? Not my blood.”   
  
“No, you can’t, such an unfortunate shade of blonde.” Magdalene said looking very intently at the light fitting.   
  
Rick, who insofar been bored stiff, picked his head up off his hand and tried to stifle his laughter. Evy hid her smiling mouth behind her hand at the startled expression on Mrs Wilson’s face, it made her look like a pigeon.   
  
“I beg your pardon, that is my wife!” Mr Wilson fumed.   
  
Magdalene folded her hands neatly on her lap. “Yes, and not my mother so you can ask her to stop acting as if I’m her child.”   
  
He stood. “You have raised a very ill-mannered young girl! I think it best to send her back to Father Fridley.”   
  
“You can’t do that!” Evy stood up to face him.   
  
“As my husband is her father, we are her legal guardians and we can do as we see best for her.” Mrs call-me-Francine Wilson sidled up to her husband and stuck her nose out at Evy.   
  
Rick took his pistol out and pointed it at her gut. “Back down lady, you threaten my wife and I’ll string you from the chandelier.”   
  
“Nobody is making me go anywhere.” Magdalene glared daggers at Mr and Mrs Wilson. “Rick and Evy may not have raised me but neither did you. I taught myself to speak, to dress. I taught myself to fight. I taught myself to tie my own shoes. I may be ill-mannered and I might not talk properly all the time but I must ask you to reconsider the motivations for your visit for we have no intentions of entertaining your  _scintillating_ company any longer.”   
  
“What on earth is the child babbling about.” Mr Wilson demanded of Rick.   
  
“I’m sorry, would you prefer me to use simpler words you can understand?” Magdalene opened the door to the hallway. “Bugger off.”   
  
They left, both steaming with anger and promising threats but looking far too embarrassed to ever go through with them. They sped away in a chauffeured car just as Jonathan arrived looking far too drunk this early in the evening.   
  
“Did I miss anything?” He asked.


	24. Nine months earlier

“We fought of the armed soldiers tooth and nail, slashed the mummy in half and made off with the gold! Of course, I bravely stayed behind to make sure the beast was well and truly dead. The others feared for my life but I said to them, I said ‘if I don’t make it, I will die happy knowing you did’.”

There was a round of applause for Jonathan’s retelling of the events in Egypt, the room was full of people and noise. Rick and Evy had married and they were celebrating in style. Friends, family impressive members of the upper class, there were too many names and faces to remember.

“I’m not sure how much of that was true but it certainly sounded good.” Magdalene giggled, leaning on his shoulder.

He threw his arm around her. “The thing is Maddie, dear, it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not so long as you believe it.”

“If only you were actually that profound and not just drunk.” She said.

“Come on,” he laughed “let’s pay our respects to my sister.”

“You make it sound like she’s dead!”

He snorted. “Well she is now she’s married.”

They walked across the exquisite hall, Jonathan’s arm still around Magdalene’s neck, giggling like children. She’d spent a lot of time with Jonathan on the trip to England, where he’d told her dozens of stories about his childhood, they’d grown almost as close as real siblings.

Eventually they made their way to the bride and groom who were talking to a very tall figure in black.

“Ardeth old boy!” Jonathan grinned lopsidedly. “Didn’t think you would make it!”

The impassive man stood respectfully talking to Rick and Evy, but looked up at Jonathan’s bellowed greeting.

“It can’t be Ardeth! He’s in Egypt.” Magdalene said.

Stepping round Rick, she came face to face with him and broke out into the biggest smile she’d pulled all night.

“What are you doing here?” She asked.

“I came to congratulate our friends on their union.” His thick, exotic accent was unchanged. “How are you, Magdalene?”

“I’m great. England’s lovely and Rick hasn’t shot me yet, which is something.”

“Hey!” Rick scowled.

Evy, resplendent in her snowy dress, laughed at the expression on her now-husband’s face and put a hand on his chest.

“Why don’t you two catch up and we’re going to save Jonathan from the head of director’s wife.” She said, nudging Magdalene’s arm a little bit before swooping in on her drunk brother.

Magdalene scratched behind her head and with a nod of her head directed him to a corner of the room away from the majority of the guests, she thought he would appreciate the space and anonymity.

“Why are you here Ardeth?”

He gave her a look of surprise but his stoic expression returned quickly.

“I didn’t think you were the type to cross a whole continent for a party.” She smiled.

“There are rumours of a cult that have come out of the shadows since they watched Imhotep’s destruction over the desert. Their leader is in England.” He admitted.

She realised the gravity of the situation. “And they might be here since everyone knows Rick and Evy have been to Hamunaptra. Can I help?”

Ardeth shook his head. “It is not your fight.”

“Excuse the expression but bullshit.” She ground her teeth. “My friends, my fight, my problem.”

“You have not changed.” His laughter and sparkle returned.

“Yeah? Neither have you.”

They made small talk whilst Ardeth occasionally asked who certain people were. It was familiar to the both of them, passing time whilst waiting for something to happen. Magdalene tried to observe the party guests without looking nervous.

“Have you had any more dreams about the creature?” He asked.

“No.” Magdalene shot him a half smile to mask the sliver of disappointment in her voice before pointing at someone talking to Evy.

“That’s the new Head Curator at the National History Museum, Baltus Hafez, Evy says they’ve been after him for years. He helped verify the treasure we brought back home.”

She watched Ardeth as he got a look in his eye she had become very familiar with in Egypt. She had seen it when he attacked them at Hamunaptra, when they faced a newly regenerated Imhotep. It had terrified her when she saw it on the plane. She saw it through rage fuelled tears at the base of the Horus statue.

“You’re brooding again.” She teased.

He hummed, eyes still locked on the scholar. Magdalene fidgeted whilst waiting impatiently for him to be done thinking.

“Maybe you can help me.” He said, finally, and she snapped her head up to listen. “Now is not the time to scare him, it is too easy for him to lose us with all these people. Magdalene, I need you to watch him and send me letters with reports.”

“My writing isn’t that good yet.” She protested. “Can’t we just hit him over the head with a wine bottle?”

He gave her a look and she turned peevish.

“I was only asking.”

“For me?”

The question came out of the blue and Magdalene looked at him confused. Now it wasn’t a matter of spying or adventure, he was asking her a personal favour. As an ally and a friend. She couldn’t say no to that.

After a moment or two of staring, he was very brooding, she asked, “Where do I send my letters? I don’t think desert tribes have post offices.”

“Send them to the Museum of Antiquities, I have a friend who is more than willing to carry the information back and deliver my replies.” He smiled.

Magdalene was confused.

“Hamed has chosen to remain with the Medjai.”

The young woman gave out a little laugh, part joy and part relief. She gave Ardeth a tight hug as she thought of the bright-eyed boy safe and able to grow up with a family, even if it was a combat-centric family.

“Thank you.” She whispered.

Ardeth returned the hug, with only a brief second glance at the man leading Evy to the side of the room, before putting his hand on the side of Magdalene’s face. She looked shocked but made no attempt to shy away from his touch or remove his hand.

“Thank you, you are a brave woman.” He said.

“Probably just stupid.” She gave a small laugh. “But I’ll do anything to help a friend.”

Ardeth shook his head and his thumb stroked her cheek. He looked almost in pain as he took his hand away, there was something about his touch that made her believe he wasn’t telling her everything. About himself or the reason for his visit to London.

“What is it Ardeth?” Magdalene put her hands on his arms to stop him moving away.

“You are much stronger than you believe.”

She quirked her eyebrow at him and lifted a sly smile. “Do you ever tell a joke?”

“Are you always this infuriating?” Ardeth sighed, but there was a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

“You, Sir, are gloomier than a wet Monday. Come on.” Magdalene gathered up the skirt of the dress Evy had bought for her, she didn’t have the heart to refuse Evy’s generosity even if it was a ridiculously long dress, and she slipped out of the reception hall with Ardeth unseen by the Natural History Museum Curator.

The cold night breeze made Magdalene realise just how hot it had been inside, her sweat chilling and making her skin tingle. There was the smell of damp air and the traffic of London at night came from the road off to the west.

“Not what you’re used to, is it?” She asked.

“It is very different from the sands of Egypt, I miss the sight of an oasis in the middle of the desert.” Ardeth said.

“Good luck on the journey home.” Magdalene was staring quite pointedly at the sky and quite pointedly away from Ardeth’s face.

There was an intense pause, as if Ardeth had something to say but could not bring himself to tell her. The wind blew at Magdalene’s dress and she tried to supress a shiver but inevitably trembled as the hairs on her arm rose up.

“At least in Egypt you can predict the weather.” She laughed.

Ardeth kept silent for another moment, a twinge of regret in his face, as he decided against saying whatever was on his mind and diverted the conversation.

“You will be alright, becoming a spy for me?” He asked. “I will not hold it against you if you cannot.”

Magdalene looked at him in mild shock. “You think I can’t spy on someone? That I don’t have it in me to lie to him? I can handle myself Ardeth, have been for years.”

“I know.”

He took her hand and kissed it, earning a blush from her as she avoided eye contact. He waited patiently until she looked at him again and smiled at her.

“I must go back to Egypt, Magdalene. Please do not put yourself in harm’s way to help me.”

Magdalene pulled her and away and coughed, smoothing out the front of her dress. “Yes, of course. Well, goodbye Ardeth.”

Ardeth kissed his fingers and touched his forehead in blessing, as he had when Magdalene last said goodbye to him. Magdalene smiled and stood there, muscles rigid so the cold didn’t get to her as Ardeth left. She mirrored his gesture of farewell but only once his back was turned to her and once he had left completely she shivered more than ever and hugged her arms against the night, tripping over herself to get back into the warmth.


	25. Bloopers

Thank you all for reading this book, it means a lot. I never expected any sort of 'popular reading' or even mass readership with a fandom that has little following nowadays and with very little fanfiction material - most of which is very niche. You've all given me more than I could ask for.   
Even those of you without accounts, I have readers on here and my other fanfiction site not just from the US and UK but Australia, Canada, Spain, Austria, Indonesia, Germany, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Ireland, India, Romania, Israel, Denmark, Brazil (a lot of people from Brazil) and I thank you all. You all support me as much as anyone else.   
So to say thank you, here are some bloopers from "Fighting Talk - The Movie"

* * *

**What do we do with a drunken sailor?**   
*Magdalene stands on the docks, looking at people coming and going with a dramatic expression on her face*   
*The wind picks up and blows her hat off her head and it covers her face*   
Magdalene: F*ck   
  
**He hates bugs**   
*Magdalene walks on set with Hamed eating*   
Rick: Did you steal that?   
Magdalene: I- hasssts beh-eh wi- *chokes on bread* oh my god   
Rick: Maddie? Maddie you okay?   
Magdalene: I'm good - *chokes again* nope   
Director: Cut   
  
*Magdalene hisses at the old women in the market*   
Magdalene: *to camera* meow! I feel like I should be growing claws at this point   
  
**Squashed hat  
** *the sarcophagus falls down and Magdalene falls to the floor*   
Evy: Maddie!   
Rick: Maddie! *pushes prop rocks off her and shakes her* Maddie? Magdalene you okay?   
Magdalene: AHH! *jumps at them with hands out*   
*Evy and Rick scream*   
*Magdalene laughs*   
Director: Let's go again   
  
**Watch it Carnahan!**   
Jonathan:  Glenlivet. Twelve years old! He may have been a stinky fellow, but he had good taste.   
Magdalene: Scotch, yum.   
*she takes the bottle and drinks. Then immediately spits it out*   
Magdalene: Ugh! Someone put actual whiskey in this! Egh! Jonathan was this you?!   
*cast laughs*   
  
**Dreaming of a dead guy**   
Director: And...action   
*the camels start walking except Rick's*   
Rick: Uh, come on buddy. ....Forward. Mush. Hatcha. Go!   
*his camel looks around and wanders off*   
Rick: Uh, help! My car needs an MOT *laughs*   
  
Director: Take two   
*Rick falls off his camel*   
Jonathan: Woah, Rick you okay?   
Rick: F*ck   
  
**He's not a fish, he's an undead mummy**   
Magdalene: He's not a fush he's a - he's not a fish he's a blurgh ble blah blu   
*cast laughs*   
Magdalene: What's a fush? I wanna know what a fush is they sound pretty cool   
  
**A step too far  
** *the group walk up the sand dune towards Winston*   
*Ardeth falls over and slides down the dune*   
Magdalene: Aren't I supposed to be the clumsy one?   
  


* * *

Preview of The Mummy 1999 Book Two in a week's time


	26. Sneak Peek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's your first look at The Mummy 1999 Book Two - (Title as yet unknown) Be sure to watch for the sequel

Grappling her horse with expertise Magdalene galloped through the sands, standing up in the stirrups as Rick taught her to do when fighting. Stood up, she could now aim from a much further distance and with grater agility. By the time she caught up with the Medjai warriors she had shot two men and knocked another off his horse by riding into him.

“What are you doing?” Ardeth shouted, cutting upwards with his scimitar to stop a blow from reaching his neck.

“Saving your ass and protecting mine!” Magdalene shouted back. “And I need the practise.”

One of the cult members came at her with a curved sword that flashed in the sunlight. Magdalene steered her horse out of his path and swung her arm around, shooting him as he rode past.

Not a second later she was rammed into by someone else and for a heartbeat she flew through the air until she crashed into the sand. There was a sharp cry to her left as one of the cult members ran at her slashing with his sword. Magdalene didn’t have time to flinch before Ardeth ran him through and he fell to the ground.

She stared at him, sweaty and panting from exertion in the desert heat. “Thanks.” She gasped.

“You’re welcome.” Ardeth replied.

“I’m still…ugh everything hurts. I’m still not used to running about all the time.” Magdalene was still out of breath once they’d walked back to camp and she collapsed onto the sand, sighing at the feeling of weightlessness in her little hollow. She thought about untying her bandana to wipe her sweat but then if she took off her jacket Ardeth would see the tattoo.

Ardeth sat beside her after dismissing his men, who backed off to leave them relatively alone. “You may stay with us for the night.”

Magdalene immediately tried pulling herself back up but she didn’t have the strength or the will power. “No! No, I need to, uh I have a camp. I need to get back to them and make sure everything is okay.”

“They will find nothing and you can spend one night here.” Ardeth would not take no for an answer.

In the end, they were sat talking for far longer than they should have, swapping stories of adventures between the years that were not fit to be squashed into the letters they’d sent each other. Magdalene was comforted and brightened by Ardeth’s presence, being so far away from one of her first true friends made her feel a little lost some of the time and the letters were mostly business which was no comfort. He was unique and she was in awe of him, being next to him made the rest of the world seem easier to live in and she wished it was always like that.

“What is this from?” Ardeth asked, laughing after Magdalene had told him some stories of Alex growing up. He was pointing to a silver line on her forearm.

Magdalene shifted from lying on her stomach to sitting up. “This is when I was in Texas with Rick. We got caught in a bar fight and one of the punters cut me with a glass bottle.”

He suddenly looked at her rather seriously. “Do you often get hurt?”

“Nah.” She sniffed. “Couple broken bones here and there, scrapes and scratches.”

After a few minutes of solemn silence, she leaned in, a mischievous smirk on her face. In the darkness, Ardeth’s face was all that more striking and the starlight in his eyes could have lit up the entire desert but for now they were trained solely on her.

“Funnily enough there’s a lot more fighting and danger when you’re trying to kill an undead mummy than there is in any bar you care to drink in.” She told him.


End file.
